Wildehopps Detectives: The Wave of Scams
by Fanficteller
Summary: There has been reported several mysterious scams all around of Zootopia lately, so officers Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde are called off from their deserved week off by chief Bogo to help to solve these wave of scams.
1. Chapter 1: Plans for the first day off

**ZOOTOPIA**

 **OFFICERS JUDY HOPPS AND NICK WILDE'S DETECTIVE FANFIC-SERIES**

 **FANFIC-EPISODE 2.  
**

* * *

 _ **Sometimes, for some reason,**_

 _ **the criminals just don't get busted.**_

 _ **But we have these,**_

 _ **two little officers,**_

 _ **to make sure they got jailed.**_

 _ **No matter what kind of is their every case,**_

 _ **they'll solve it´till the end.**_

 _ **...**_

 ** _They, they, they, they, they, they're Judy and Nick,_**

 ** _team Wildehopps._**

 ** _They, they, they, they, they, they're Judy and Nick,_**

 ** _ZPD's finest cops._**

 ** _Judy and Nick will always success in case,_**

 ** _and put the villains to face the law and justice_**

 ** _..._**

 ** _They, they, they, they, they, they're Judy and Nick,_**

 ** _team Wildehopps._**

 ** _They, they, they, they, they, they're Judy and Nick,_**

 ** _ZPD's finest cops._**

 ** _Judy and Nick will always success in case,_**

 ** _and then they'll be hailed as a heroes_**

 ** _..._**

 ** _THEY, THEY, THEY, THEY, THEY, THEY'RE JUDY AND NICK,_**

 ** _TEAM WILDEHOPPS_**

 ** _THEY, THEY, THEY, THEY, THEY, THEY'RE JUDY AND NICK,_**

 ** _ZBD'S FINEST COPS_**

* * *

 **Hi there! Time to continue OFFICERS JUDY HOPPS AND NICK WILDE'S DETECTIVE FANFIC-SERIES with a new crime case. This time officer Hopps and Officer Wilde are hired to resolve the the series of constantly occurring felony scams that are plaguing Zootopia.  
** **P.S.**  
 **\- I do not own Zootopia nor its characters, Disney does.  
\- I own only my own characters in this story.**

* * *

 **THE WAVES OF SCAMS. PART 1.**

 **PLANS FOR THE FIRST DAY OFF!  
**

It was quite peaceful and pretty autumn day that rose over Zootopia's downtown.

From everywhere could be heard numerous happy speaking and laughing among the animals walking on the streets.

In fact, this actually happened to be the lucky day, as there has not been lately much troubles among the citizens, neither so serious criminal activity going on, and thanks for that belonged to the ZPD's finest and best cops.

Therefore to them: the handsome red fox named Nick Wilde, ex-con artist and police officer of ZPD, and his best friend and partner, Judy Hopps... the cutest bunny in the world, had been granted the well-deserved week off.

Because of autumn, when the days were starting to get colder, Nick had dressed into warm and comforting grayish-blue hoodie, and Judy had dressed into women's black autumn jacket and kept the purple scarf wrapped around of her neck to keep herself warm. She also had a black stocking cap on her head.

And that was not all, Judy had mainly bought that particular autumn jacket, in which and in her stocking cap as well had been described the blueberries, from the cloth shop in order to teasingly test her fox partner's temptation, as she knew that the blueberries were his weak spot.

However, during of Judy's and Nick's common walk in the city's streets, Judy's attempt to test Nick's temptation had worked earlier today a bit too well. While peeking over his left shoulder at the blueberries in Judy's jacket and stocking cap over and over, Nick had almost given up to his temptation for blueberries that his tongue was hanging out of his mouth and he had started to even salivate at the sight of blueberries.

Nick had also accidentally viewed Judy nearly as delicious to my eyes as the blueberries. In fact, she was almost seeing the bunny-sized blueberry in Judy's clothes walking beside of him.

However, Judy had spotted this and took a pleasure of it a long before Nick was nearly about to make his move on her.

And after that, Nick still couldn't help but giggle when he remember what she had said to him back then.

"Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Down, boy! Down, boy! Don't you even dare to look at me like that that you're gonna eat me like some kind of blueberry." Judy had said, somewhat amused but also a bit annoyed of her fox partner's behaviors.

however, several times later when Nick, still tempted by the sight of blueberries in Judy's clothes, still tried to "eat" her over and over again, Judy had finally given up from the whole "testing the fox's temptation" thing and taken him to the nearby Cafe in order to somehow cease Nick's out of nowhere appeared sudden lust for blueberries.

The nearby Cafe happened to be Jumbeaux's Café. The very same place where the two had met each other for the first time.

And from there, Judy had bought for Nick the blueberry ice cream to keep his mind somewhere else than in her jacket's blueberries.

Lucky for them, that sourpuss colossal mammoth owner, Jerry Jumbeaux, Jr., had heard about the certain rabbit and fox's heroic service to the city about two and half years ago, when the fox and rabbit had risked their lives to stop Bellwether's treacherous plot against Zootopia's peace and predatory population and managed to restore the the balance of the city, the peace and harmony between preds and prey. And to the duo's honor, Jerry had made some of his ball-ice creams to resemble Nick and Judy's heads and faces made by blueberry and carrot ice cream.

And they sold well... as we had a numerous fans among of the citizens that were willing to buy one... from the little kids to the full-grown adults .

But despite Nick's heroic actions, that sourpuss elephant still harbored ill- and prejudiced feelings towards Nick... and maybe he did those carrot ice cream and blueberry ice cream balls with the shapes of his and Judy's heads mostly and merely because of money and not because of our famous actions legacy.

Well, never mind of that long-nosed sourpuss.

Luckily there was a various sized versions of those ice creams, dubbed as "Nick-Ice creams" and "Judy-Ice creams", depending on the animal species.

And that of course allowed Judy to buy for Nick the certain Judy-Ice cream, which Judy-shaped blueberry-tasting ice cream head was with exactly same features and details of her faces and ears. And finally, its size was even the same as the real Judy's head, much to Nick's pleasure.

"Now I'm gonna totally eat you, Carrots." Nick had said playfully as he started to lick the ice cream Judy's cheeks and ears to fill his tongue with the sweet taste of blueberries.

Judy of course nothing else but rolled her eyes at Nick's joke of the ice cream-version of her head.

And, within less than ten seconds, Nick had ate his own Judy Ice cream, which made Judy to wonder that did he even enjoyed his ice cream at all, like he initially did before he ate it with such of rapid pace.

However, despite eating his ice cream with such of rapid speed seemed to cease his lust for blueberries - at least for now - as he turned back to Judy.

"So, Carrots... have you finally decided that what we're going to do tonight?" Nick asked from Judy.

The duo had spent the entire weekend by considering some good ideas to spend time together by going somewhere tonight.

This week off was their perfect opportunity to do whatever they want to do. Due to their usually long lasting working days, the tired duo have been forced to delay their common late night entertainment for later.

Such of plans for tonight's entertainment were going to some fancy restaurant to eat a dinner, and there was a various choices all around of Zootopia.

Nick had suggested the restaurant located in Tundratown, that was called by the name Fishtaurant. It was the restaurant of Five Stars and usually favored by Tundratown's polar bear population, due to its a special meal: tasty fish roasted in the seal's fat. And as a counter-attack to Judy's disgusted reaction of the restaurant's special meal, Nick had reminded Judy that the certain restaurant happened to be owned by Mr. Big himself, and he had openly welcomed both rabbit and fox officers to visit in his restaurant for dinner anytime they want as an honorary guests, though he demanded the payment from them nonetheless.

However, Judy had suggested the restaurant that was located to the Sahara Square's Tasty Oasis, which was the roofless Buffet Restaurant built around of the Oasis that was surrounded by the palm trees, bushes and the trees with the bananas, pineapples and coconuts, and where was the buffet tables for both the prey and predator. The owner of the restaurant, John Camel, had built into the Oasis' pool of water the fountains, whose underwater pumps were carefully placed to the correct positions to the bottom of the pool, with the color-changing lights to create some ambience during the nighttime. He also had placed Hawaiian tiki torches all around of the dinning area to enlighten the area, along with the Hawaiian lantern, that were attached to hang from the ropes, that were tied up to hang across the air space above of the restaurant's dining area.

They had also both suggested something for entertainment.

Nick had suggested them to pick up some movie from the Animal Kingdom's film theater and go to watch it tonight with some popcorn and milkshakes. But Judy here had suggested them to instead order some pizza and soda drink and borrow from Tiny Tiger's Video Rental Shop some chilling crime films (because as a cop, Judy has developed out of nowhere the love towards the crime films and series, which are usually always full of persistent detectives, sinister and complicated criminal cases to be solved and epic action moments and final battles between law and crime... such of which we two have received the big experience more than two years ago) and watch them throughout the night at home.

Nick had also suggested them find and go to the Night Club called Jungle Palm to enjoy the alcoholic drinks and have some disco dance when the punk rock band of jungle felines called "Jungle's Kitties in Bikinis" were about to perform their next big rock-show right there. However, not taking a liking of seeing the half-naked hot felines of the rock-band playing and singing on the stance, Judy had suggested going instead of paying visit in the concert of one of Zootopia's famous singers', Hyena Gomez, at the Savanna Central.

And finally, they both had also suggested one thing they both were somewhat agreed: to rent a convertible and have a nightlong ride with a car in outside of Zootopia, just two of them all alone.

And they had both suggested a many places where they could pay a visit during of their nightlong car-ride.

One of the suggested places was the pizza bar called by the name "Spotted Pizza" to order the pizzas and Zooca Zoola (Coca Cola) drinks.

Or, another suggestion was to go to the fast food restaurant, such like MChorn Burger, whose rhinoceros owner called by the name Sam Mchorn happened to be officer Mchorn's cousin from his mother's side.

Or, they could always find The Big Donut shop and buy the box of doughnuts for them. But the another suggestion was also find one of Nick's old pals, Jake Wild the cape dog, who used to work at night by driving his moving hot dog stall called by the name "Jake's Hot Cape Dogs" to the a lively places, such as concerts or football games, and sell his Hot Cape Dogs to the visitors.

There were a lot of suggestions and alternatives, so both were difficult to decide that what they should do in the first day of their week off.

But as we were about to make a decision for tonight's plan…

 _PIRRRRRRRRR!_

Suddenly, from somewhere was coming a loud sound from the burglar alarm, as if one of the nearby shops had just been broken into and robbed.

Nick immediately groaned in frustration when the burglar alarm started to ring. "Aw, man! You gotta be kidding me! Burglary, and yet in the middle of daylight."

"Tell me about it, Slick. Why the criminals are always on the duty when WE are off duty?!" Judy complained in annoyance.

Comparing this very moment to some of their days at the work lately, those days have always been tedious days with the tedious paper works. There has been no any criminal activity, of which Judy had complained more than often last few days. In her opinion, if there was something what truly was missing lately, it was some good-old action in the form of the car chase or the criminal cases to be solved.

The crimes have been lately taking the activity always then when their watching eye evades... mainly in their day offs.

It was like some criminals have hired some underworld mammals to spy their activities and report immediately back to their employers when the duo was about to take day or week off, which the criminals saw as the perfect opportunity to do their illegal move when Judy and Nick were off duty.

Both the rabbit and fox officers were deeply disappointed and frustrated that their day off had just been ruined by the burglary taking place nearby of their current position.

However, day off or not, the sound of burglar alarm, that was coming from nearby of their location and neither of them had ZPD's walkie-talkie with them at the moment to report about the burglary to the headquarters' boys, meant always some extra duty for them.

They were still cops after all, and luckily they happened to have their badges in their pockets, which would give them the right to do the police works, even in civilian clothes.

And, out of her officer instincts, Judy quickly turned away from Nick and was about to head towards the crime scene with the rapid speed.

"Come on, Nick! There's a burglary in progress!" Judy shouted over her shoulder to Nick.

"Carrots, wait, wait, wait wait! This day was supposed to be our day off!" Nick tried to call after her, but she didn't listen.

Every time when it is about protecting the city and innocent animals from the ones against the justice and innocence, she was deaf for everything else around of her.

Nick sighed and went go after her to make sure that she does not hurt herself.

 **TO BE CONTINUE...**

 **TRIVIA**

 **Zootopian Businesses mentioned in the chapter but are non-canon in the film universe, except for Jumbeaux's Café & The Big Donut**

1\. Jumbeaux's Café

2\. Mr. Big's Fishtaurant

3\. Restaurant Tasty Oasis

4\. Animal Kingdom's film theater

5\. Tiny Tiger's Video Rental Shop

6\. Jungle Palm Night Club

7\. Spotted Pizza

8\. MChorn Burger

9\. The Big Donut

10\. Jake's Hot Cape Dogs

 **Events mentioned.**

1\. Hyena Gomez's Concert.

2\. Jungle's Kitties in Bikinis' show.


	2. Chapter 2: Day off ruined

**WAVES OF SCAMS PART 2**

 **DAY OFF RUINED**

* * *

Before Judy and Nick could reach to the scene and source of the alarm, there was the action going on already.

At the Mr. Wildebeest's jewelry shop, the police chief Bogo, and several ZPD officers: Mchorn, Fangmeyer, Francine, Higgins, Rhinowitz and Vincent the grizzly bear had already made it to the crime scene before the rabbit and fox cops did.

ZPD officers had caught the criminals in the act and Francine and Higgins had managed to pin down to the ground one of the criminals, the black-backed jackal, in front of the shop's broken showcase. Francine was holding the criminal in the ground while Vincent was about to handcuff the jackal.

However, another criminal, coyote, escaping towards the nearby bike with the sack full of stolen gems.

"That coyote is escaping with the loot! Stop him!" Bogo yelled at his officers.

Fangmeyer and Rhinowitz pulled out their taser guns, lifted them up and aimed their darts to the coyote's back and demanded at first the coyote to halt and surrender. And when the coyote refused to cooperate, the officers fired the darts, but the criminal quickly dodged the gun's darts by jumping behind of the bike for cover.

"Your aim sucks, coppers! Even elephant is able to dodge those shots!" the coyote mocked the officers while he jumped on the back of the bike and and started its engine.

Before he could get away, he spotted Judy and Nick, whom had just arrived to the scene from the nearby alley ... and right to the way of with the bike escaping coyote.

"Out of my way, brat!" The canine snarled and kicked Judy down with his leg, sending the rabbit to fall onto her back to the ground, before he started to leave the scene.

Judy, however, quickly recovered from the hard kick to her stomach and grabbed with both of her paws from the coyote's leg… and the rabbit officer ended up to be dragged along with the escaping coyote.

The rabbit officer hanging on his leg disrupted the coyote's concentration on rising the speed of the bike into the full speed - and it even disturbed the coyote's concentration on driving the bike - and prevented him to get away from the area completely.

However, the coyote still managed to reach close of the mid-speed with the bike as he turned from the junction to the left and escaped behind of the other side of the corner, Judy remained to hold on for her dear life in the coyote's leg, even though her legs were rather painfully rubbing against the tarmac along the way.

"ZPD! Stop in the name of law!" Judy cried at the coyote, ignoring the pain in her legs.

"No gonna happen, weakling!" The coyote snarled at the rabbit officer and moved the bike closer to the lane of incoming cars, right at the moment when there was incoming car with the paint of zebra's black-white stripes.

Judy's eyes widened as she noticed the car.

"OH, SWEET CHEESE AND CRACKERS!" Judy cried as she realized that the coyote was gonna smash her against the car in the high speed. The collision against the car, and yet her head ahead, would only mean the certain death.

However, while the escaping coyote criminal was attempting to get rid of Judy from his leg, Nick had hurriedly hurried after them by using the shortcut from the nearby alleys that led behind of the corner after junction - somehow suspecting/sensing/successfully guessing that the coyote would turn from the junction to the left.

And on his way, knowing how to stop the criminal from getting away, Nick grabbed from the alley the metal pipe into his paw and took it with him.

This was confirmed true once after he exited from the alley and saw the coyote - and Judy still hanging on the coyote's left leg with her own legs rubbing against the tarmac - on the back of the bike and incoming to this direction from the junction.

And once seeing them, Nick immediately climbed onto next to the alley's entrance standing tax car's bonnet and fell onto all his fours, waiting for the good opportunity for the surprise the coyote, when the criminal is about to pass him this car and him as well.

And when the coyote and Judy on the back of the bike were in the right spot...

"Hang on, Carrots! I'm coming!" Nick's voice was suddenly heard, attracting Judy's attention.

And with that, Nick, unexpectedly to the coyote who attempted to turn the bike to the right and away from Nick's reach pull the full speed though too late, leaped off from the bonnet of the car and flew across the air towards the coyote's left leg and Judy. And once he reached to her, Nick wrapped his free arm around of Judy's waist and pushed the pipe to the criminal's bike's rear tire.

After feeling Nick's firm grip protectively around of herself, Judy left go from the coyote's leg and both ended up to roll along the street's tarmac, with Nick protecting Judy with his own body.

Fortunately for both of them, Judy had let go from the coyote's leg right after the coyote had turned the bike to the right as a failed attempt to evade Nick, thus dragging both the rabbit and fox with him away from the incoming car's way and thus inadvertently saving the duo.

The metal pipe in the bike's rear tire blocked the tire's going like to the wall and it launched the criminal off the bike's back. And the coyote flew screaming across the air until he landed against the dustbin, knocking it over and causing the garbage to spread across the street, while knocking himself at the same time out cold, while Nick's and Judy's ball-like form's "not so smooth" landing to the streets eventually halted.

"Ouch! That gotta hurt." Nick said after witnessing the criminal's fly.

Then the officers rushed to the scene. Fangmeyer and Vincent immediately rushed to the half-conscious coyote and handcuffed him quickly. After which the officers lifted him up and loaded him into the police car to be taken to ZPD HQ in custody, along with the criminal's loot.

And while Fangmeyer and Vincent dealt with the criminal, Francine and Bogo hurried to check Judy and Nick's condition.

"Wilde, Hopps. Well done from both of you, though I didn't expect your arrival to the scene for today." Bogo said with the tone of proud of his finest officers.

Nick stood up and helped Judy up on her feet from the ground.

"It is the pleasure to thwart the criminal's plans in the act, sir." Judy said while saluting to our boss.

Bogo nodded proudly smiling at us, until his expression turned slightly contemplative as he watched at us.

"By Mother Nature, Hopps! If I were you I would the chance the pants before I totally lose them in the public." The chief said.

Judy quickly checked her jeans, and she let out the loud sigh of frustration.

Her jeans were not just dirty, but they were from her left leg torn nearly to the point that they were almost falling off from her legs, due of her being pulled along with the escaping crook's bike with the great speed against the tarmac of the street, which also revealed her black female bunnies' underpants from under of the tatters of her jeans. And the very same thing had happened to the left sides of her autumn jacket and her shirt from both behind and front of her left shoulder, revealing partially her bare body with her black bikinis.

This embarrassed Judy totally.

"Oh sweet cheese 'n crackers! This is awkward even for to the famous cop of this city! I'm glad that the reporters haven't arrived yet! " Judy said with embarrassed tone and quite rudely grabbed from Nick his own jacket and put it to hang from her left shoulder in attempt to cover her bare body parts peeking from beneath of her torn clothes.

"Well, at least your scarf survived." Nick said with the grin.

"Seriously, Nick!" Judy said loudly.

"No, calm down, Hopps. You were lucky that you didn't got the bad injuries... not counting those few bruises and asphalt rash." Bodo said, pointing out to the surface scratches, few bruises and asphalt rash in Judy's left foot, left shoulder and side.

Nick saw them too and let out the light snarl at the jackal as he was pushed in the police cruiser.

Before anyone around could say anything more, Bogo was the first one to speak.

"Come with me, Hopps and Wilde. I'll take you two back to your apartment, where you can clean yourself and tied up Hopps' scratches and bruises and chance into your officer uniforms." Bogo said as he turned for the police cruiser.

Nick couldn't believe his ears, neither Judy. "What? But sir... with all due respect, today was supposed to be our well-deserved day off and…" Nick attempted to say, but was then interrupted by Bogo.

"No buts, Wilde. And I know that all too well. The truth is... I just don't care right now. Besides, I would like to have a word with you two." Bogo said firmly.

Nick sighed out of frustration and started to help Judy to walk to the police cruiser.

Judy's wounds had of course made her left leg a bit sore, but because they were just slightly stinging superficial injuries, they didn't bother Judy's walking with her left leg that much... despite her slightly limping walking style after being dragged along the tarmac by with the bike escaping jackal.

And then, Judy's senses, which was more likely her sharp sense of hearing, suddenly sensed something from the very same area... the presence!

That prompted her to turn her head slightly to the left to peek over her left shoulder at the corner, from where Nick just had come from.

And, she then noticed the dark figure with the brown coat and green hat watching them from behind of the corner.

This immediately prompted Judy to turn to Nick.

"Don't look back, Nick. But I think that that guy out there is following us." Judy whispered to Nick, who turned his head slightly to the left to peek over his shoulder and saw from the corner of his eye corner the same guy whom Judy had just noticed.

Nick and Judy added more speed as they rushed to inform this to Bogo, until they eventually reached to him next of his police cruiser.

"Uh… sir. I don't know do you care neither this one, but I think that we three are followed by that guy out there." I said to chief with the suspicious look at this guy, which suspiciously made it clear to them that he had been spotted and emerged from the alley and started to walk towards them with the charismatic walking style.

The stranger appeared to be a female zebra, whose brown jacket and hat resembled the reporter's clothes from 1940s or something, but he was holding the modern day's reporter's camera that was hanging around of her neck. And the stranger was also holding in her hoof-fingered hands the pen and bundle of note pads.

Bogo turned around to see, but he remained calm unlike I did.

There's nothing to worry about, Wilde and Hopps. She's Zelda Zebra. Pretty harmless lady newszebra. Because of those crooks we caught in here, we agreed to meet right here so I can take her with me back to the headquarters. She's just going to write me to the magazine for the next few days." Bogo explained.

"Indeed, chief Bogo. Maybe I can make even a book of you. As you are the most reputed chief of police of Zootopia, and the city itself is a very glad to have you as the chief of police." Zelda said.

Nick turned to Bogo to see if usually grumpy and strict chief of police would blush with such of flatters that newszebra said to him. But, however, to the fox's big disappointment he didn't.

However, Judy frowned at the presence of the newszebra... even if there was just a single one.

"Oh, great. Now we got newsmammals around of us just when I messed and got my clothes to shreds." Judy complained both annoyed and embarrassed. It would be the perfect humiliation for her if in the headlines would read anything about her an embarrassing accident.

Bogo then cleared his throat to speak.

"Mrs. Zebra, allow me to introduce you my two finest cops, Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde. They're the ones, who…" Bogo said, trying to introduce them to Zelda.

"…Who solved the Night Howler scam created by treacherous, evil and nasty wolf in the sheep's clothes… and rescued the entire Zootopia from the chaos she caused." Zelda said like she already knew Judy and Nick's heroic service to the city.

However, Zelda turned to Bogo like me and Judy were just air to him.

"Are we ready for interview, chief Bogo?" Zelda asked.

"Later at my home, Mrs. Zebra." Bogo answered before turning to us.

"Now, you two, get in the car." Bogo said.

Nick helped Judy to get into Bogo's cruiser's back seats before the red fox jumped after her, while Zelda sat to the front seat next to the driver's seat.

And when everybody else was onboard, Bogo climbed inside of his cruiser to the driver's seat and took us away from the crime scene, heading towards Judy and Nick's apartments in the midtown.

 **TO BE CONTINUE...**


	3. Chapter 3: A new case

**WAVES OF SCAMS PART 3  
**

 **A NEW CASE  
**

* * *

It didn't take long from Bogo to take the duo to Judy's apartment, because it was the closest one of two.

And once there, Nick helped Judy to wash up the bruises, scratches and tarmac rash Judy got in her left leg, her left hip and her left side while hanging on from the jackal crook's leg when he attempted to escape on the back of the bike and caused the rabbit officer's left side to be rubbed against the tarmac in the great speech, before he finished to job by putting the bandages on Judy's injuries.

And once Judy's injuries were treated, the duo then chanced their civilian clothes to their police uniforms (Luckily both Nick and Judy had bought deputy uniforms and given one of them to each others possession in case if one of them loses their apartment's keys and cannot get the uniform from own apartment before next day: Nick had Judy's rabbit-sized deputy uniform in his apartment's wardrobe and Judy had Nick's fox-sized deputy uniform in her own) before they were on the road again and heading towards the ZPD's headquarters.

Judy, Nick and Zelda entered inside of ZPD Headquarters right behind of Bogo and they instantly made their way through of various ZPD officers on duty and today's customers, heading towards Bogo's office. But as they were about to step onto the first steps of the stairs, Clawhauser suddenly rushed from his desk to Bogo and whispered to his ear something… probably something what Judy and Nick nor Zelda were not allowed to know, at least not yet.

"Fine, Clawhauser, I'll speak with him. Dismissed." Bogo said before dismissing Clawhauser and sending him back to his desk.

Bogo let out the sigh of frustration. Judy and Nick already guessed judging from Bogo's words that he was at the moment waited by someone in his office. However, judging from Bogo's reaction to these news, that "someone" probably wasn't pretty nice guest for him.

Once they reached to his office's door, Bogo wrapped his hoof-fingered hand around of the door's handle and opened the door with the intention to let Judy and Nick inside, but Bogo denied politely from Zelda the entry to inside.

"My apologies, Mrs. Zebra, but the press cannot take part to this meeting." Bogo said, explaining the reason to why he was denying Zelda's entry.

Zelda calmly and respectively packed off.

"I understand. I'll wait from the lobby. Just don't forget your promise, chief." Zelda said and went off.

Once the trio walked into Bogo's office, Nick was immediately frozen and I leaned hard against the wall in fear and shock, after the fox officer realized who Bogo's today's guest actually was. This didn't go unnoticed by a bit confused Judy, but chief himself ignored that, as his full focus was in his today's guest.

The chief's today's guest, whom had dressed into the fancy dark-blue suit and he had the cigar in his mouth, was no other than Mr. Sullivan Fullmoon himself, the stupid rich grayish-blue furred business wolf and the owner and head of the city-wide banking company called the Bank of Fullmoon. And he had, as usually as they dare to describe, not so happy and impatient expression on his face. More likely angry and demanding.

"Good day, Mr. Sullivian. I didn't expect you to pay some visit." Bogo greeted with the polite, though also with well-hidden tone of a bit annoyance.

"Is there anything information about that blasted con-artist?" Sullivian asked impatiently from the chief.

Nick's blood clotted after he heard this, and the fox officer attempted to stay as invisible as possible.

"Nick? What's wrong?" Judy asked at the same time as Bogo opened his own mouth to speak something.

"Mr. Sullivan, allow me to introduce to you my two faithful and finest cops. Officers Judy Hopps and…"

Bogo got no time to finish what he was saying while introducing both Judy and Nick, because Mr. Sullivan had already turned his head to look at Judy and Nick with unimpressed and uninterested expression on his face. Probably due to Judy's mention of Nick's name and its familiarity in Mr. Sullivan's ears had most likely caught the business wolf's full attention.

The business wolf's eyes widened as he saw Nick attempting to hide in the room's shadows from him.

"Uh... Hello again. What's up?" Nick nervously asked with the nervous grin in his lips, and yet nervously waving his fingers at him in "Hi" style.

"YOU!" Sullivan barked in fury after recognizing Nick, and before anyone could do anything - and before Nick had time to say "uh, oh" - the business wolf immediately charged towards the fox officer. "WHY YOU LITTLE...!" Mr. Sullivan barked as he violently grabbed with both paws from Nick's throat and pinned him roughly against the wall of Bogo's office, starting to strangle the fox officer with all his animal strength.

And in addition to all of that, the business wolf even took the hidden pistol from under of his brown and stripped business coat and pressed it against Nick's forehead.

Judy gasped in shock after seeing Mr. Sullivan attacking Nick and even holding him with the gunpoint.

"What are you doing?! Stop it! Let him down!" Judy yelled and she tried to go between of Nick and Mr. Sullivan in order to separate them from each other, only to be kicked aside by Sullivan as he briefly turned to her... before the furious business wolf turned back to Nick.

"YOU DARE TO SHOW YOUR FILTHY FACE IN HERE AFTER WHAT YOU DID TO ME, AGAIN, FOX!" Sullivan yelled in fury as he thickened his grip around of Nick's throat, causing the fox officer some trouble with breathing and making him to let out the throaty gasps.

Mr. Sullivan even pressed his own gun harder against Nick's forehead and was even about to pull his gun's trigger down.

"PUT THE GUN DOWN! NOW!" Both canines heard Judy yelling behind of the business wolf.

Mr. Sullivan grudgingly and angrily turned his head towards Judy and noticed that the rabbit officer had pulled her own teaser gun out from the holster in her uniform's belt and aimed its darts at Mr. Sullivan's back.

But before the situation could reach out of control…

"WOAH! WOAH! WOAH! WOAH! CALM DOWN! ALL OF YOU!" Bogo called out with the thunderous voice

"Mr. Sullivan, release my officer at once." Bogo firmly ordered.

Mr. Sullivan glared at chief with the widened eyes, shocked of what he had just heard.

"Are you two defending him?! And you're even calling him an officer? He's the fox! Just shifty and untrustworthy fox!" Mr. Sullivan angrily barked at both chief and Judy, in disbelief and reluctant to let go of Nick.

"That fox is my partner My fox! Only I have the right lecture him and use physical violence on him! If you do not let go of him now, I'm gonna arrest you for assaulting the police officer and…" Judy said a threatening tone.

"ENOUGH! Hopps, put your gun down and back off! Let me handle this." Bogo yelled at Judy.

"Bu-bu-bu-but chief! He just assaulted Nick and Nick is an police officer! Does he not supposedly get accusation for assaulting the police officer?! And what about that gun, then? He just held Nick with gunpoint what is against the law, except for the officers if necessary. Does he even have a gun license? Does he..." Judy attempted to protest.

"I SAID, ENOUGH!" Bogo repeated himself even more firmly to Judy.

Though reluctantly, Judy eventually lowered her teaser gun down, placed it back to its hostler and backed off as ordered, while Bogo moved next to Mr. Sullivan and tried to speak the business wolf out of hurting, or even killing Nick, and right at the police station.

"Mr. Sullivan, Wilde is one of my officers and one of these two who made the heroic service to this city two and half years ago. You know that you're yourself in the very big trouble with the law if you pull that trigger. You're in middle of ZPD's headquarters. One gunshot and you force us to take a legal action and you're under arrest for attacking and killing the police officer. Such of incident with the law won't do any good for your reputation as a banker, and the consequences of such a high charges cannot be easily avoided by simply paying the fines, and you know that. But all of this is forgotten, for now, if you lower your gun, release him and back off at once." Bogo said calmly, despite the high tension of the current situation..

Mr. Sullivan didn't turn off his furious stare from Nick. He was still too angry and reluctant to let go of him.

He probably didn't even believe what Bogo had just said about consequences of hurting and even killing an officer... or maybe he even doesn't care.

"You better listen him, Mr. Wolfie. Everything what the chief Buffalo Butt said is true. As you can see from my appearance, mostly from my uniform of course, I am police officer of ZPD. Look my badge! It isn't a fake badge nor the children's toy badge but a real ZPD badge. And I'm kinda under the protection of this badge and through of it the law!" Nick said, the best he could while having Sullivan's paw still in a tight grip around of his throat.

"So, you can't even touch me." Nick added, with the teasing tone of voice that only enraged Mr. Sullivan even more and even tempted him to pull the trigger of his gun.

"Mr. Sullivan, these two are my most trusted and finest cops ZPD ever had. They ruined once the ex-mayor-turned-terrorist Dawn Bellwether's treacherous plot against the predatory population of Zootopia, like you, and the balance and harmony of Zootopia. I trust the solving of this case into their paws... and with their help, the factor will be caught and you can have back what is yours." Bogo explained to Mr Sullivan.

Fortunately for everybody around, Mr. Sullivan, who used to be usually grumpy and stubborn, hadn't completely consumed by his hatred towards Nick and his species, took reluctantly his hate-filled glare off Nick and looked to the different direction and remained in that way for while, as the business wolf was thinking hard of everything what chief had just said.

Of course Mr. Sullivan did not wished to ruin his reputation as a rich and through of his bank an influential banker and business wolf by lowering to the level where he would become a cop killer by killing Nick Wilde in the public and have both cops and reporters after him, even though he has not had not even very good reputation due to him rudely turning away the beggars from his doors; both poor and homeless mammals and the mammals of charity, or giving his donations only to those businesses, of which he himself would benefit.

And so, much to Judy's big relief, Mr. Sullivan removed his gun from Nick's forehead and lowered it down, though still highly reluctantly. Sullivan silently and slowly placed his gun back to where he had even pulled it out before he roughly threw Nick over to the floor, prompting Judy to run to Nick's aid and helped him to back on his feet, while glaring at Mr. Sullivan with the despising look.

"Yeah, the help is what your poor excuses of police officers really need. you have not progressed even an inch in this whole case." The angry business wolf said as he turned away from Judy and Nick back to chief Bogo.

After helping Nick up, both Judy and Nick remained aside while watching Bogo's and Sullivan's argument about the situation, which was not clear to them yet.

"Well… you see, Mr. Sullivan… we actually have not any clues yet, and…" Bogo tried to explain but the angry business wolf ignored this.

"Bosh! I demand results and answers, and not the pathetic explanations like that, chief!" The business wolf barked right in front of the chief's faces.

"Try to understand, sir. This con-artist is something what we've never before encountered. We got reports about the scams all of time but each one always has different appearance descriptions of the factor. It's like a factor would be a shape-shifter or something. We also do not exactly know if there are more con-artists than just one, and in order to find out, we've been searched for the each scam's factors' records from Zootopia Public Records but we've not found any information about the factor of each scam. That fact tells us that none of these factors doesn't exists at all, and that's what confuses us. But we're trying to solve this wave of scams whoever is doing them and why and find the factor as quickly as possible."

"Well, I hoped you could do better than this. Nearly two weeks has passed and yet you're like still at the beginning of the investigation of the case!" Mr. Sullivan spat.

"But my patience is now at the end, chief. So I will give you some motivation to progress in your case and faster! You have forty-eight hours to find this accursed back-stabbing con-artist and get her behind of the bars… or else, as one of the wealthiest and most influential mammals of Zootopia, or else I will have a serious discourse with the new mayor of Zootopia... about you being released from your job as a police chief! Understood?!" The business wolf shouted to Bogo's calm faces.

Judy's ears jumped up and her eyes widened after she heard this. Mention of forty-eight hours time to solve this case probably reminded her about the time when back then highly prejudiced Bogo had himself given to her forty-eight hours to find Mr. Otterton when he had, thanks to Bellwether's treacherous Night-Howler scam, disappeared for two weeks before she herself had joined to the force for the first time.

"Hmph! You're not to give me the orders, Mr. Sullivan. No one gives me the orders IN THIS BUILDING NEITHER IN MY OWN OFFICE! No one except the mayor himself." The chief started with offended tone of voice.

"And mere money will not give you the right to make and enforce your own so-called decisions and regulations in the name of the mayor, sir." Bogo said with the strong tone of voice, at the same time indirectly accusing Mr. Sullivan for a supposed attempt of offer of a bribe to a new mayor in exchange of getting him fired from his job as the chief of police. Due to his ability with the business and his wealth, Chief Bogo always suspected there to be dark side of skulduggery and corruption hiding deep within Mr. Sullivan despite his open unwillingness to lower to the level of criminal.

"But as I said, we'll do our best to bust the factor." Bogo said before walking to the door and opened it, referring Mr. Sullivan to leave his office.

"You're dismissed. Thank you for your visit and good day, Mr. Sullivan." Bogo said with the demanding tone.

Mr. Sullivan nodded with the frustrated look in his faces and was about to go out, until he stopped and looked at both Judy and Nick.

"I'll deal it with you later, fox!" He threatened before disappearing out of the door.

Once he was completely gone, Bogo let out the loud snort of frustration and anger and smashed the door closed. This startled both Judy and Nick completely.

"That wolf is truly the thorn in my side! Who he really thinks he is in order to be able to command me?! And now he let out such of pathetic threat to fire me from my duties as the chief of police, despite the fact that knows all too well that he has not right to decide for that!" Bogo roared in frustration.

Luckily his outburst was only a brief-time lasting, as Bogo slowly but certainly calmed down and sat down to the chair of his office table, referring Judy and Nick to have a seat from two chairs in front of his table.

Both small officers immediately walked to the chairs that were about two times of Judy's size, jumped onto them and sat down.

And once they were on their seats, Bogo opened his mouth to speak.

"Okay, let's get started. At first I ask you two not to ask "have you any idea who was that recent wolf guy?" Because in fact, that's not important and I do not even care. I just want to get down to business, because this guy was the one of whom I wanted to talk with you two, and at the same time about a few others." Bogo started.

"Judging from your recent speech while speaking with that wolf, it sounded like Mr. Sullivan had been through of some kind of scam, am I right, sir?" Nick asked.

Bogo nodded to me.

"So, Mr. Sullivan has been tricked by this "she" and then something got stolen from him. But what? A money?" Judy asked, with her nose twitching eagerly wanting to hear the answer from the chief.

"Uh, no. Not money, Hopps. Actually nothing, except his two hundred golden and silvery keys to his two hundred safes." Bogo answered.

"WHAT?! JUST MERE KEYS?!" Both Judy and Nick surprised and loudly shouted as the duo jumped up from the seats on their feet and leaned with the support of their paws to the edge of Bogo's table.

"Exactly, Hopps. You see, nearly two weeks ago Mr. Sullivan hired a new secretary to his company." Bogo explained as he took out the photo taken by the security camera from Mr. Sullivan's office, which showed to the duo the business wolf welcoming on the corner of his office's table sitting young, slender, golden-furred and pretty charming female gazelle, who had a long and thick red hair and who had dressed into women's orange secretary suit. The gazelle had lifted one of her bare legs onto another and she had quite ingratiating look on her faces as she was talking to Mr. Sullivan.

"Mr. Sullivan told me that she had seemingly unmistakably excellent recommendations." Bogo said and put the picture away.

"How does this relate to the specific case, sir?" Judy asked.

"Well, two days later that gazelle disappeared without a trace, but not before Mr. Sullivan had unwittingly showed to her several places in his business building on her first day at work. Including the place where he kept his keys to his two hundred safes. That gazelle could have been able to rob the couple of the safes full of money, but only the keys went missing with her. After the theft, Mr. Sullivan has been afraid the possibility that the gazelle might return to rob his money, but nothing had gone missing from his property during of two weeks." Bogo explained.

Judy and Nick were briefly in their own thoughts after listening the details of Bogo's explanations, before Nick opened his mouth to speak.

"Probably the carefully made and to realistic printed fake recommendations. No wonder if that stupid rich business wolf was fooled so easily."

Bogo nodded as agreement with Nick, before he continued by pulling out a new picture to show to them.

"Almost about the same time in Rainforest District, there was Po'anda Chinakiro, the famous film director from Pandaworks company, who had hired giant otter cook, who had lot of work experience from Zootopia's best Chinese restaurants. In the following day, he cooked for him his famous noodle soup and sushi for the lunch. But right after feasting, Chinakiro suddenly got the food poisoning." Bogo explained.

Judy gasped in shock after hearing that and fearing the possible assassination attempt.

"What about the cook? Did he call some help for Chinakiro?" Nick asked.

However, Bogo negatively shook his own head.

"No at all, Wilde. Chinakiro's own personal staff found him in pain at the floor of his private dining room and immediately called the ambulance to take him to the Savanna Central's hospital. But the giant otter cook himself had mysteriously disappeared from the scene before Chinakiro's personal staff found him. Some witnesses have told us having seen the giant otter for the last time serving Chinakiro at his private dinning room before he disappeared… and so did all Chinakiro's golden lionscars he had won with the movies he had directed." Bogo answered.

"What about Chinakiro, sir? Is he... is he gonna be fine?" Judy asked in fear for the innocent civilian's life.

Bogo lifted one of his hands up to calm her down before he explained.

"Now, Calm down Hopps. This isn't so severe as I assume you to think. Although food poisoning can be a nasty thing and in the victim's opinion torturous experience, it does not mean that it is as serious as the real poisoning. So, with the exception of few days lasted nausea, several times of vomiting and abdominal pain, Mr. Chinakaro is fine." Chief explained calmly.

After heading that, Judy let the sigh of relief to escape out of her mouth.

"What's the matter, Fluff? Ever have experienced such of thing like the food poisoning in your life? It's like the bad food is pinching your tummy from inside." Nick, taking a good opportunity of this, teased Judy a little bit.

Judy gave the cheeky glare to her fox partner.

"Nope, no I haven't, Slick. Before meal time, my mom used to flush all the vegetables every time she was cooking in order to evade any chance of me or anyone of my siblings from getting food poisoning. So I have never gone through such of experience, but that doesn't mean that I do not know what the food poisoning is. And what about you then? Have you ever experienced such of "torturous experience", Slick?" Judy asked from Nick in counter... and with the sly grin on her lips in retaliation.

Nick partially jumped in the upright position while sitting in his seat, with his ears jumping nearly in upright position and eyes widening after facing Judy's counter, and after thinking a moment and recalling all the illnesses he has gone through throughout his life.

" _Touché,_ Fluff." Nick eventually answered, giving Judy a hint that he in fact has in one point in his life experienced such of "torturous experience", giving Judy an opportunity to create on her lips the rabbit's most's widest triumphant grin that bared her teeth from under of her lips.

While the duo was teasing each others, Bogo silently and still like the statue glared at them with the frown look on his faces for a moment.

 _We're here talking about the case and these two are teasing each others about the food poisoning._ Bogo thought before he cleared his throat.

"May I ask for your concentration, please?" Bogo politically but sternly interrupted any further teasing between Judy and Nick, whom immediately quint their teasing games and turned back to Bogo.

"Oh, yeah! The case! Our apologizes, sir." Judy apologized, before she returned back to where they were left in this case.

Judy fell for a moment in her own thoughts.

"So, there was another scam, that happened the same time as Mr. Sullivan's scam happened, did not?" Judy asked from Bogo, who answered to this with the positive nod.

"And there's more yet." Bogo said as he took out the third picture about the old wildebeest with the thick mustaches and small glasses.

"Professor Gnu, the owner of the huge mansion in between of Rainforest District and Savanna Central. He hired shortly after these two scams a new female pig cleaner to his mansion to clean up everything while he was gone for the business things in the downtown for two days." Bogo explained.

"And when professor Gnu returned to home, the cleaner had disappeared without a trace." Nick continued for chief, already having guessed this happen after listening all those stories about the scams.

"And what that cleaner then took from him?" Judy asked.

"Well, it was pretty embarrassing and very difficult for him to tell in his crime report to the police, but the only one thing what has went messing... well... was his teddy-bear from his childhood." Bogo said.

"Whatta?! Teddy-bear?!" Nick said loudly out of surprise.

Bogo nodded once again. "Yes, Wilde. Teddy-bear."

"That's odd." Judy said while falling once again to her own thoughts. "Why would anyone steal something that has a sentimental value like teddy-bears?" Judy asked from herself.

"Or why would anybody steal the mere bunch of keys without even using them to open Mr. Sullivan's safes and steal hundreds or maybe millions times more valuable stuff than keys?" Nick asked.

"That is why the victims of these scams want me to investigate." Bogo said, as he eventually stood up from his seat and walked to their side on the desk.

"I understand that the victims of these scams feel very embarrassed for being too easily fooled, but that feel is driving them to demand results. And now, as you saw in the case of Mr. Sullivan, they're starting to demand even more than what I can do, and there's several other scams reported lately. They simply do not understand that I truly had no time to investigate all of them at the same time. And I'm not capable to be in the twelve places at the same time. Especially when I have now interview upcoming." Bogo said with annoyance.

"That's why you two are here. Especially you, Wilde, as you used to be a con-artist and pawpsicle hustler living on the streets before you joined to the force." Bogo said as he turned his attention to Nick as the topic of conversation changed unexpectedly from the case to the fox's former life as a con artist and hustler.

Nick's ears jumped into upright position and his eyes widened by surprise after hearing the chief mentioning his old lifestyle before meeting Judy.

"Pardon me, sir?" Nick said with the questioning tone of voice, as the buffalo reached to the cabinet in the corner of his office and opened one of its lockers, pulling out from there the red covered case file folder, in the cover of which was reading "Nick Wilde", for Nick to see.

"This case file contains a few reports, and I mean "a few" because none hasn't really cared due to your species, that relates to your pawpsicle scams and peddling them in the public... even though I do not know, and I don't care right now, that was your permit of commerce either legal or false. And among of these almost meaningless scams of yours is also the especial one: A felony tax evasion, because of which you've been the target of ZPD's past criminal investigations, but you always managed to somehow get a one step ahead of us and managed for years to evade of being tracked down, caught and arrested for your felony by ZPD. I assume that you most likely were back then a very attentive when covering your tracks and disposing any possible clue and evidence relating to your felony in order to get away from the consequences of your actions."

Nick's ears fell against the back of his skull, his lower jaw all dropped to hang from its base as he kept staring directly at chief, speechless and his eyes widened even more wide out of surprising realization that Bogo had the full knowledge of his so said "meaningless" scams and even his felony tax evasion.

But how? Nick remembered how he had thought back then that nobody wouldn't even care what he was doing, due to the mammals prejudiced view of the foxes back then, and that he had after every scam he committed covered his tracks and gotten rid of the evidence the best way he can, so that he could avoid getting in the troubles with the law.

Unless...

"I gotta admit that you've been either very smart or very lucky fox for managing to evade ZPD for so long... well, until officer Hopps showed up and actually made you part of investigations with the missing mammals and Night Howlers... by managing to trick you into confession of a felony tax evasion and recorded it with her carrot pen as a needed evidence and advantage against your word, if you still remember." Bogo explained, with the amused grin on his face.

"Oh, crap." Nick whispered, as he recalled that day when Judy hustled him to confess a tiny details as an evidences of his felony, which could have led him to be locked into a jail for the next five years, according to Judy's words

It was bitter humiliation Nick had ever experienced in his lifetime... especially when his own methods had been used against him by the rabbit officer as her personal retaliation for tricking her earlier back in that Café and later humiliating her by tricking her into the wet cement.

Then, with the eyebrows raised, the fox officer immediately turned his attention at Judy and shot the daggers out of his eyes at her.

Nick came to realize that she had went behind of his back to tell Bogo about his former lifestyle as a con-artist - and even his felonies - since he was twelve, until he met Judy in her first days at force and a day later found himself "forcibly through of Judy's trick" involved to the case of Missing Mammals with her and much, much later to the Night Howler Outbreak (though he himself willingly counted himself in it after being touched by Judy's tearful apology).

And yet Nick remembered that they had agreement that Nick's former lifestyle and committed felonies were their own little secrets.

Knowing of being under of Nick's dark and scolding glare, the rabbit officer quickly turned her back at Nick and locked her eyes at the ceiling of the office and started slightly swing her head from side to side. She also lifted her paws on the table and wrapped her fingers around of each other before starting to rub her thumbs against each other. And in addition of all of this, she even whistled the "Old Jackrabbit Had Farm" song... as an attempt to look both ignorant and innocent.

Nick even saw that while whistling, Judy's lips attempted forcefully to wide from the whistling position to the wide grin and let the laugh escape from his lips, and all while Judy attempted hard to fight to keep her lips from widening into the grin and in the whistling position.

"Nice try, rabbit." Nick stated, unconvinced of Judy's poor attempt to act an innocent.

It was then when Judy couldn't fight it anymore, and she slowly and nervously turned back to Nick, with her shoulders lifted to the level of her cheeks and a wide teeth-baring grin on her lips while chuckling nervously under of Nick's dark glare.

"Carrots! I thought we had agreement, you sneaky back-stabbing bunny!" I snarled loudly and scolding tone, making Judy to chuckle nervously even more.

"Uh... just a slip of the tongue, honest!" Judy tried to explain, as she lifted her paws up to calm him down while Nick kept glaring at her darkly.

However, Bogo put an end of this before the situation between the duo got even more tensed.

"Now, enough of these less important past-stuff aside now and let's get back to the case." Bogo demanded, as he put the folder pack to the locker and kept searching for the particular one from the other case folders.

However, Judy still nervously avoided the eye contact with Nick, as the fox officer kept scowling at Judy with the dangerous look in his emerald eyes.

" _Beware, rabbit! The revenge will be delicious... and it will be a very soon."_ Nick vowed in his mind.

" At first, I did not mean to humiliate you with the past felonies that have been already forgiven after you went through ZPD academy and joined the police force, Wilde." Bogo apologized, though with his usual gruff tone of voice, as he pulled an another folder from the locker before closing it and heading back to his desk.

"But the true reason why I called you two in here, is officer Wilde's former life as a con artists and his own schemes... being compared to these recent scams, which could help us to get even somehow forward in this case." Bogo said.

While still glaring at Judy with a dark scowl, Nick slowly but certainly turned his attention away from Judy and locked it towards the chief.

"How does these late scams relates to my own in the past?" Nick questioned.

"Well, according to what officer Hopps has told me about how you act in your every scheme, your ways to commit a scam interestingly resembles the way how those recent scams goes in every time: blend into, convince the victim into believing your intentions, steal what you're applying and get away as quick as possible." Bogo explained.

"However, about the plots of these scams, there's a one small error between of me and those current con artists at large, sir. Those con artists stole from their victims. I always bought what I was applying from the places where I committed my schemes. I never stole anything." Nick immediately protested.

"Yeah, sure you didn't." Bogo said, not totally convinced of Nick's attempts top justify his ways to commit his schemes without any more illegal ways than necessary. "But that is not the main thing. The main thing is to get on the trail of those con artists, and I assume that you might understand all too well the con artists' action ways and motivations, just like your own motivation as a con artist was survive on the streets by the way how the other mammals expected you to live. Besides, you may have even had even connections to these con artists in the past, through of which may be possible that you may know their identities, which they're most likely trying to hide with the false ones. And so, maybe your mind of con artist... former, of course... may help us to get on the trail of the factors of these scams." Bogo explained.

However, Nick began to protest, with the sarcastic attitude as usual.

"Eh, chief? I sensed already from your voice your frustration to this case, that it drives you to believe that I may be aware of the ways of every con artist of this city. May I remind you about one good old saying, chief? "Do not expect too much". I may know some con artists by names from my days as a con artist, but the con artists do not usually reveal their "business secrets" to anyone, except those who work with them, in order not to lose profits to someone else, who may use the same secrets to make profit at their expense." Nick explained.

"I'm not interested of the con artists' so-called "business secrets", Wilde, I'm just interested in the fact that the two of you just get started and get the job done by solving this damn Wave of Scams... and I can finally rid myself from one thorn in my side." Bogo said firmly though keeping his temper, before he eventually tossed in front of them onto the desk a folder, in the cover of which read "Latest Scams."

"Take these case files with you, because you're gonna need them. That folder contains all the reports of the latest scams, including those ones we didn't go through. Maybe you two come up with something I have not noticed." Bogo said.

Both Judy and Nick nodded at their boss, ready to take the case.

"We're on it, sir." Judy stated with the confident tone of voice.

"Good, officers. You can go now. Dismissed and good luck." Bogo said and referred the duo to exit from his office.

Both the rabbit and fox officers saluted to the chief before taking the folder into their possession, jumping off from their seat and headed towards the door of the office.

However, as the duo reached to the door of the office and Nick was about to open it, Nick suddenly turned back to Bogo.

"So, are you and that Mrs. Zelda going to keep that a little interview here in your office or what, sir?"

Bogo let out the small snort out of of annoyance.

"Wilde, you and Hopps had some work to do with solving these scams, so off you go now. For your information, officer Higgins assists me while I'm dealing the interview with Zelda." Bogo explained before ordering the duo to leave now.

Satisfied from the answer, Nick opened the door and attempted a bit rudely go first out of the door before the folder alone carrying Judy as "small part" of his upcoming vengeance against Judy for her earlier humiliation against him by telling some of his top secrets about his past life to Bogo.

However, soon the door was open and Nick stepped outside, he almost bumped with Zelda Zebra, who had patiently waited all the time outside of the office and had immediately stepped in once the door opened for the second time after Mr. Sullivan's furious depart. However, Zelda swiftly dogged Nick with a mere inches from the impact with Nick... nearly as swiftly as a cheetah, despite the fact that Zelda was an zebra.

"My apologies, Mrs. Zebra." Nick said with the apologizing tone to the passing newzebra, who somewhat rudely ignored his apologizes and didn't even pay any attention to him. She had her full attention focused at Bogo sitting on his desk.

However, being ignored with the rude matter wasn't in any way new thing to Nick as he had faced that similar treatment towards him back in his days as a con artist, Nick immediately decided to let it go and kept exiting from Bogo's office, with Judy right on his tail.

"Well, have you already done, chief, the King of the Police Forces…?" Nick heard Zelda speaking to chief with the flattering tone.

That "King of the police foces" got Nick to let the amused chuckle to escape from his lips, but he quickly departed from the scene before Bogo could catch him from laughing at him behind of his back.

However, as the duo reached on the topside of the stairs, Nick suddenly stopped as he suddenly caught with his nose a somewhat strange scent from the atmosphere of the ZPD headquarter, which was both faint and disgusting but it was at the same time something he found strangely familiar.

Nick went through in his mind many other scents he knew and compare it to that one he just caught, however...

"Nick? C'mon!" Judy called for him from the mid part of the stairs, where the rabbit looked at him over her shoulder right.

Judy's call snapped Nick out of his thoughts and turned his attention to the rabbit as she kept walking down the stairs. Though Nick still remained to wonder the familiar smell, he decided to ignore the scent for now, labeling it either as the gas from some officer's accidental fart or else as something what he should investigate later.

And with that, Nick hurried down the stairs after Judy.

The duo paid a quick visit at Clawhauser's desk to fetch the keys to their personal police SUV Z-240 that was standing at the parking lot of ZPD.

And once the duo reached to their SUV, they immediately jumped into their seats: Judy taking the driver's seat and Nick the passenger's seat. And within the minutes, the duo was on their way at the streets of Savanna Central.

 **TO BE CONTINUED...**

 **TRIVIA**

 **Name 'Mr. Sullivan', his role as the Head of the Bank and his species 'gray wolf' comes as an inspiration from the character with the same name and species from The Adventures of Willy Fog TV-series.**


	4. Chapter 4: On the road

**WAVES OF SCAMS PART 4  
**

 **ON THE ROAD**

* * *

On the road, judging from the seats they'd taken before hitching to the road from ZPD parking lot, Judy dealt the driving their police SUV while Nick dealt the reading the reports of the scams from the folder, much to his dismay, as the reading the reports wasn't his favorite thing in the police force, and Nick viewed such of part at the work as boring as doing the paper works.

Besides, Nick had wanted to drive the SUV this time, but Judy had unfortunately seized the full control over the driver's seat and put him to read the reports of the scams to look for any single detail Bogo had failed to see. Nick viewed such of act as unfairness and had complained about it loud.

However, Nick eventually submitted to Judy's wishes, though reluctantly, and after taking the comfortable position on his seat, the fox officer opened the folder and started to read the reports about the lately happened scams without complaint... however, while reading the reports, Nick silently murmured to himself that how delicious his revenge against Judy would be.

After some time while driving, Judy recalled that nearly out of control reached tensed moment between of Nick and Mr. Sullivan back at Bogo's office, before she turned to look at Nick and asked out of curiosity that what he had done to Mr. Sullivan to get him so angry at him that nearly led that business wolf nearly kill him in Bogo's office.

After the question, Nick put aside his vengeful feelings towards Judy - for now - and began to search the answer for Judy's question from his memories of those days when he was the con artist and working with Finnick on the streets. Before long, the the wide grin suddenly appeared on his lips and Nick began even giggle heartily as he remembered his and Finnick's latest gig with Mr. Sullivan.

"Well... It happened about two years before we met each other for the first time." Nick started...

"Was that before your tiny mess with Mr. Big?" Judy interrupted, eager to hear Nick's story about him and Mr. Sullivan and eager to compare them with each other.

"Actually, somewhat after, but that was much more successful job... and even lucrative for me." Nick stated, before gesturing Judy to let him continue his story, which Judy agreed with the nod.

"You see, Carrots, I had once disguised myself as a seller, who sells the ownership rights of the companies." Nick, started, until Judy interrupted him.

"Nick, there's no such of thing like company seller." Judy said with the cheeky tone. "Besides, how it can be even a possible that Mr. Sullivan did fall a victim of your scheme if he both saw and knew that you're the fox?"

Nick shrugged and "innocently" rolled his eyes.

"Well, peace of cake if you wear on you a green checkered trousers, red seller jacket, blueberry-colored bow tie and the wig with orange and tufty hair. And what becomes to species, Mr. Sullivan is usually that kind of person who usually is blinded from everything else if being proposed with a highly productive offer of which to gain more wealth. Otherwise I would have considered of covering my species identity by disguising my face with a facial paint so that I could look like a badger." Nick explained.

"Why badger? Why not skunk or raccoon?" Judy questioned teasingly.

Nick raised his eyebrow. "Skunk? Raccoon? Oh, sure sure. Definitely either one of them, except that Mr. Sullivan has a sensitive sense of smell and he's xenophobe towards skunks because of that. And raccoons raises suspicion due to their burglar-looking appearance in the eyes of many." Nick explained.

A wide and teasing grin appeared on Judy's lips as she looked at Nick.

"Really? And yet I thought that it was foxes, who raises even more suspicion in the eyes of entire public." Judy teased, earning an offended scowl from Nick when Judy mentioned the foxes usual daily problems with the public.

"SHUT UP AND LET ME CONTINUE IF YOU PLEASE." Nick exclaimed with offended tone, which immediately made Judy to realize that she was at the edge of going a bit too far.

"Okay, okay, okay! I was just kidding, Nick. There's no need to erupt like that!" Judy hurriedly apologized and allowed Nick to continue his story.

"Thank you, wabbit." Nick thanked with the sarcastic tone before he continued his story.

"Well, as I was saying, I had disguised myself as a company seller and I was planning to sell to Mr. Sullivan the ownership rights of non-exists company ' _The Fountain of Youth_ ', through of the bottles filled with the rain water, which I claimed to be the water from _the legendary Fountain of Youth_ 's physically rejuvenating water, which is capable to turn the old mammal to look like younger again." I... kinda... tricked Sullivan with the mirror to believe that he had became an old wolf with the face full of wrinkles and I advertised him my water and its phony abilities. I needed just to wash his face with the water and then secretly wipe the "fake" wrinkles off the mirror and then I gave him to look his a new "younger" faces from the mirror. That alone was enough to make him both interested and fully convinced and interested that with of such of "magical water", the beauty salons owned by him can earn more revenue than ever. He totally wanted to get his fingers on that "miraculous" water and have the company under of his ownership. And so, I sold him all my bottles and the ownership rights of the company with twenty million dollars. That of course came as a horror to him but I convinced him to believe that it would be worth of massive revenue for the water. Though we managed to make a sale, he paid me ten million dollars from that water. However, it was better than nothing and with which I left from the scene quickly before that wolf would realize my hustle." Nick explained, before starting to chuckle lightly at his successful hustle Judy started to giggle at Nick's story, though out of two of them, only she attempted to hold back her giggling."How long it did from Mr. Sullivan to realize his mistake?" Judy asked, while still trying to put her giggling under control.

"About two days later, cottontail." Nick answered.

"You see, on that day, Mr. Sullivan tried to advertise the non-existing The Fountain of Youth company's fake product in live broadcast. It happened in one of his most favored and productive beauty salon, where he had called the press conference to witness the "miracle" of the water he'd bought from me. I watched the progressing of my masterpiece from my TV, and soon enough I witnessed its results when Mr. Sullivan got as his first and unfortunately last customer; someone Jasper-named old goat with long white beard his face full of wrinkles." Nick explained with the smirk.

"I just can't get out of my mind the look in his face when he watched from aside as the water was put into a test by washing that old goat's wrinkled faces with the first batch of that water, only to notice that the water didn't work on his face's wrinkles, much to Sullivan's surprise and confusion. Mr. Sullivan believed that maybe there was too little water and which would cause the effect to be slow progressing. And when nothing didn't happen, Mr. Sullivan tried again to wash the wrinkles off that goat's faces with the second batch, then third, then fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth, another twelve and he kept doing that until he had wasted all of them, and still the goat's faces remained the same." Nick explained while trying hard to hold back upcoming laugh as he recalled the memories in his mind."

"And soon, the press conference somehow found out the truth behind of the water from _the legendary Fountain of Youth_ I sold to Mr. Sullivan along with the false ownership rights of the non-existing Fountain of Youth company for ten million dollars - probably because either one of those reporters or that old goat himself tasted the water in their mouth and recognized it as a regular rain water. And with that, in addition of that when Mr. Sullivan explained in front of the cameras how he got the water and the false ownership rights of the non-exist company in the first place after he realized truth, the press did not give mercy and published these on the headline of the newspaper." Nick said, as his paw dove into his pocket and picked something from there, which he showed to Judy.

It was a two years old piece of the news paper, in which was reading...

 **ZOOTOPIA TIMES**

 **"MILLIONAIRE, BANKER AND BUSINESSWOLF MR. SULLIVAN GETS TRICKED AND BADLY HUMILIATED!"**

 **"Lately, a billionaire, banker and businesswolf Mr. Sullivan has fallen into a scam and has bought a non-existent company's ownership rights for 10,000,000$ after attempting to test on the old mammals " a physically rejuvenating" water, which Mr. Sullivan has claimed to be from the mythical Fountain of Youth."**

While showing the piece of the newspaper to Judy, Nick finally lost the fight of trying to hold back his laugh and burst into sweet laughter at the memory.

"Poor Mr. Sullivan. He most certainly became a laughing-stock for several months, and all thanks to my successful scam that earned 10,000,000$!" Nick laughed, while placing the piece of newspaper back into his pocket.

Nick's hearty laugh got even Judy to lose the fight against holding back her own laughter, as the rabbit started to giggle uncontrollably yet sweetly... though she quickly considered herself as ' _one to talk_... or laugh,' because she had herself fallen into Nick's hustle back in the Ice Cream shop.

"You naughty but sneaky fox. Then no wonder if Mr. Sullivan has swore a personal vendetta against you." Judy said while giggling uncontrollably.

It took a some time for her to hold it back before she was capable to ask the next question.

"And what did you do with that 10,000,000$ you earned through of dirty and illegal way, Slick?" Judy said.

Though Nick wasn't capable to hold back his own laugh as quickly as Judy, he at least managed to hold it back that much that he could catch some breath before he could answer to Judy's recent question.

"Well, I had many ideas with such of amount: to buy fancy luxury apartment, a bitchin' convertible or take a trip on the expensive pleasure cruise in the tropics. However, I eventually decided to give 90% of my earnings to my mother because of the personal reasons relating to our species. You see, Carrots. My mother owns an abandoned hotel which she has turned into combined orphanage and homeless shelter for the orphaned fox kittens and homeless foxes to settle in in the downtown, and she needs enough money to keep the place afloat, keep the foxes inside both safe and fed and pay to the employees their reward for their service, whom are usually the foxes but sometimes some other mammals whom do not view the foxes by the way like the rest of the world does." Nick said.

Judy was deeply touched by that. "Awww, Nick! That was so noble and selfless act coming from you."

"At least towards my own desperate and help-needing species, Fluff. Other mammals doesn't matter." Nick remarked, before he continued.

"And, I also consider my scam to Mr. Sullivan as a personal payback to that sourpuss from my mom, because my mother had once came to Mr. Sullivan to ask his funding for her orphanage and shelter for orphaned and homeless foxes, pleading him to think the best for the foxes and help to rebuild their future. However, my mother's pleads and request for funding were rudely rejected by that unsympathetic wolf, who called my kin as a filthy plague in entire Animal Kingdom before he even personally kicked my mother out from his bank to the streets like the rag doll."

Judy was disgusted by this knowledge how Mr. Sullivan had treated Nick's mother when she was in the quest to help her and Nick's kin.

"This might be a rough from an police officer... but I'll say that that wolf definitely deserved to be hustled so badly and lose that 10,000,000€ for treating your mother like that." Judy proudly declared.

"Hell yeah! In your face, Mr. Sullivan!" Nick exclaimed in agreement.

Soon enough, Judy regained her serious-self back when she changed the subject to their case.

"However, we have the case to be solved. As Bogo said that you have a mind of con artist, so you can tell me what you can say about these latest scams." Judy said.

Nick nodded to his partner and turned back to the case files Bogo had given to them and proceed to open several case files to check the reports about the scams.

"Well, as Bogo said about Sullivan's and Po'anda Chinakiro's scams happening almost at the same time, those gazelle, giant otter and pig seems to be accomplices with the forged certificates and disguises and they probably had planned these scams very carefully to avoid arouse the doubts. Very clever from them indeed. Maybe even as clever like tricking some naive bunny rookie into the wet cement pissing off some beaver construction workers for ruining their hard work, if you remember." Nick teased his partner with the sly grin.

Judy rolled her eyes at that unpleasant memory of that unpleasant - but luckily momentous - day when Nick had slyly hustled her into the wet cement and she got stuck in it, and Nick even put the blame on her from the incident, that wasn't even her fault, in attempt to get rid of her and her nagging.

And in addition of that, like being humiliated by the fox wasn't worst enough, she was angrily berated by those beaver workers for ruining the smooth surface of the cement when they released her legs from the cement.

"Stay focus in this, dumb fox." She said in frustration.

Nick couldn't help but briefly burst into a loud giggle, though he quickly managed to get the hold of himself and I continued to check the reports.

"Wait! There's three scams more of which Bogo didn't tell us." Nick exclaimed.

"One report tells about the famous bowler Mr. Rhinocerotidae. He met four days ago a beautiful rhino girl in bowling tournament, dated with her for two days and then went with her in the same bed in the third day's night. And the next morning, she was gone, disappeared without the trace. However, the rhino girl didn't disappear without leaving a note for him, because as soon as he woke up, Rhinocerotidae found out of nowhere appeared picture about another teen rhino girl - who was completely unknown to him - leaning next of his phone, into which had been left a voice message from that female rhino; "Rhinocerotidae, you treacherous pig! I hate you!" Nick explained, trying to imitate the light female voice.

 _"Oh, the love is so cruel! Why did she leave me? Why?"_ Judy said dramatically while landing her paw's backside onto her forehead and sighed so sweetly like she had just lost some one she loved to another. Nick couldn't help but giggle to her performance, followed by Judy, who quit her dramatic performance and giggled with Nick.

"But if you ask from me, I'll say that that doesn't make any sense. How exactly Rhinocerotidae losing his girlfriend like this relates to these scams, Nick?" She asked after she held back her laugh.

"Well, Rhinocerotidae's heartbreak turned soon into fury after he found out that his tenth golden bowling trophy, which he'd won in the tournament on the day he met that rhino girl in the bowling tournament, had mysteriously disappeared, and just the same morning as the rhino girl disappeared. Rhinocerotidae firmly believes currently that his so-called and back-stabbing ex-girlfriend stole the trophy while he was sleeping."

Judy shook her head after I ended this report

"That was pretty cruel trick... even from the con artist." Judy stated.

Nick nodded in agreement.

"And there's another one, which relates to that famous singer, Gazelle. She hired three days ago excellent and a lot of experienced gardener, a lion, in her house. He made excellent work for two days, turning her jungle-turned garden inside out, unlike his predecessor zebra gardener, who revealed to be lazy, incompetent and too annoying one, because every time when Gazelle turned her back and headed to her room, that zebra left his job and sneaked to her bedroom's window and secretly spied her while undressing and dressing herself... taking even pics of her behind of her back when she was... uh... well, you know." Nick said.

Nick heard Judy growling silently. Probably already knowing how annoying that kind of acting sounded... which made Nick to wonder that had Judy in some point of her entire life experienced such of harassment.

"Pervert!" Judy mumbled with her voice full of disgust, so Nick quickly returned to the main subject.

"Well, however, Gazelle had reported that she had after two days allowed the gardener to handle the flowers of her bedrooms, while she took the warm bath in the bathroom, which door she had locked in case of keeping non-invented mammals outside. But after she had finished her path and came out from the bathroom, the gardener had strangely disappeared… and much to her shock so were her jewelry and her shiny dancing dresses too… all of them. Nothing had left behind." I explained.

Judy's ears jumped quickly upright and her eyes widened into wide out of surprise after Nick finished reading this report.

"Her all jewelry and dancing dresses?! So that's why her concert on this week was canceled without the reason?"

Nick nodded before turning back to the reports.

"One left, a famous teenager saxophone player, Lisa Cougar, has lately reported to ZPD that her beloved saxophone had been stolen inexplicably from under her nose after her last performance, when someone teen-looking hippo girl inspired a number of fans to beg from her for her autograph, during of which her saxophone disappeared from her paws. That one scam really broke that poor cougar girl, because now that she is no longer able to practice without her saxophone, all her future performances will be in vain, and she is in danger of being erased from the finals.*"

Judy left her ears to drop against the back of her head after hearing this. This report reminded her from the moment during her childhood, when Gideon Grey stole from Sharla her own saxophone and threw it to the lake as "revenge" for revealing him as a thief of Sharla's teacher's cookie jar. Well thanks to Judy's help, Gideon was forced as punishment to buy to Sharla a new saxophone and then he was put to the home arrest for a whole month.

Judy then returned from the past to the current moment.

"So, we have a six scams to be solved, six victims to be questioned and probably six criminals, gazelle, giant otter, pig, rhino, lion and hippo to be find and put under arrest." Judy said before she let out the deep sight. "This is going to be long day."

Nick then turned his eyes and attention back onto the files, during of which they reached to a crossroads, where they had the red light, causing Judy to hit the brakes and stop their cruiser in front of the red traffic lights and crosswalk, which was soon filled with congested mammals from the sidewalks.

Nick kept going through the case files, until he suddenly spotted something interest-catching thing from the last case file.

"Wait! There's yet one more report. It comes from the theater in the downtown." Nick exclaimed after reading the final report.

"And what kind of sneaky scam this time?" Judy asked. "C'mon, Nicky. Give me one more reason to hunt down this or these criminals to the kingdom come."

Nick took a while to read report from beginning to the end in hope for some answers, until he finally found it.

However, Nick shook his head at Judy's guess.

"Well, in fact, this one actually isn't a scam nor robbery. They had reported in this one that some of that certain theater's costumes have been disappeared or more likely stolen. And THAT happened over two weeks ago… before any of these other scams." Nick explained.

"Over two weeks ago before any of these other scams, eh?" Judy questioned, before falling under of her thoughts for a moment.

And then, her expression turned into a serious one.

"This might be our very first clue, Nicky!" Judy exclaimed with the wide smirk on her face.

"What do you mean?" Nick said in confusion.

"Well, as you said, these con artists are possibly using the disguises in their scams. And if that's true, the roots of all these lately cases may somehow relate to that theft in the theater or vice versa. I think that we should then start the investigation from there, where all of this may have started." Judy declared.

"Agree! The report came from the Game Trail Street 12 Let's go my friend!" Nick loudly stated with the tone full of eagerness to start their investigation.

Judy turned to her fox partner and gave him a smug smirk.

"Ready to make the world a better place?"

Nick answered to his bunny partner's smug smirk with positive grin, before taking out his sun glasses and placing them on his nose.

"Then why are we sitting here on our butts, Cottontail? Let's roll! WILDEHOPPS TEAM'S STYLE!" Nick declared.

Nick's answer got Judy's smug smirk turn into a wide yet proud smile, before he turned her eyes on the road.

"Cop ladies and cop gentlemammals... next stop, the city theater on the Game Trail Street 12!" Judy declared, and when the traffic lights eventually turned into green for them, Judy hit the gas and the duo headed to the Game Trail Street 12 in downtown.

 **TO BE CONTINUED...**

 **TRIVIA**

 ***This case was inspired by Lisa Simpson's hobby of playing saxophone and The Simpsons fifth season's episode 'Homer the Vigilante' where Lisa's** ** **saxophone** gets stolen by cat burglar Molloy.**


	5. Chapter 5: Ralph's Theater

****WAVES OF SCAMS PART 5  
****

 ** **Ralph's theater  
****

* * *

After driving for a while, Judy and Nick eventually arrived to the Game Trail Street 12, where the city theater was located.

The owner of the theater was impala named Ralph, with whom Judy and Nick have found themselves dealing with in the past.

About two months ago Judy and Nick's old weasel pall, Duke Weaselton, had succumbed to the side of the pocket theft and happened to steal Ralph's fat wallet from his pocket when he was walking in the Central Zoopark and then attempted to sneak away from the park to the city's streets.

However, his act wasn't left unnoticed, when the little elephant girl of the elephant family, that was about pass Ralph in the park on that day, inadvertently revealed Weaselton in the act to Ralph. Weaselton of course managed to escape Ralph's wallet in his dirty paws, but not without his identity being recognized by Ralph.

Judy and Nick happened to be on the patrol near the Zoopark at the same time, having being assigned by chief Bogo to patrol the streets around of the Central Zoopark due to the multiple reports about the repeating pocket thefts in the area, until they were halted by by Ralph when the impala had suddenly and completely unexpectedly jumped in front of their car from the streets, pleading them to help him.

Of course Judy and Nick had to lecture Ralph for jeopardizing traffic by jumping in front of them like that. And following the lectures, the rabbit and fox officers went into the case and started to question Ralph about the nature of the situation and his motivation to his need of their help.

Ralph immediately started to describe them that what had happened and had given them a big hints about the suspect's identity by describing the suspect's species and facial features, which Ralph revealing having seen one too many times that the features of the particular weasel have been immersed in his memory. Ralph had explained to Judy and Nick that he had lately seen the very same weasel often visiting in his theater at every performance event. Ralph also told them that every time the same weasel paid the visit in his theater, he had overheard the exiting audience's complains about their wallets having mysteriously disappeared during the performance and the weasel itself had mysteriously disappeared after the performance event had ended. And now, after catching a brief but adequate glance of the weasel's faces, thanks to the elephant girl of the elephant family whom were the key witnesses, Rap had realized that why the mammals in the audience had complained their missing wallets. And following those massive incidents, many have stopped from visiting in his theater because of fear of losing their wallets to the pickpocket hiding among the audience, which put his business in danger. Ralph's description of the suspect's species and appearance, as well as the elephant family's description of the event were enough to convince Judy and Nick's opinions about the situation and the suspect and they immediately recognize the suspect as Duke Weaselton.

Ralph's and the elephant family's description of Duke Weaselton attempt to steal Ralph's wallet in the Central Zoopark - from where majority of the reports of the pocket thefts came from - and Ralph's description of the repeating events in his theater during of Duke's every visit encouraged Judy and Nick to believe Duke being connect to all the recent pocket thefts to Duke Weaselton,

It took half of the month for ZPD to capture Weaselton, whom Nick had humorously nicknamed as "The Duke of Pickpocket", as he was a quite smart and cunning guy. He managed to avoid arrest by escaping ZPD's blockade formed around of the abandoned and damaged school buss where he had been detected to be dwelling. And following his escape, Duke had managed to evade being captured by ZPD for two weeks through of cunning and unfair tricks, which helped him to evade many ZPD officers.

However, it was until the first days of the third week of hunt when Judy and Nick had strategically managed to barely capture him. They had chased him on foot across the streets and eventually managed to corner him to the alley, where they had earlier planned and set on their trap to capture him before locating Duke and chasing him to their trap. When the duo had managed to lure Duke to the alley, Nick had blocked the weasel's escape by going to the opposite entrance of the alley and went hide into the alley's shadows in ambush, leaving the opposite entrance of the alley open in order to make Duke arrogantly believe that he was about to get away from chasing Judy again, without knowing that Judy was actually leading Duke straight to their trap. Nick called their trap humorously with the nickname "dustbin trap", because once Weaselton had reached in the perfect spot in the right moment and knowing nothing about their trap, Nick had to Duke's surprise pushed the round dustbin to roll out of the shadows in front of Duke. Duke had tried to avoid the trap, but his efforts to either stop or dodge incoming dustbin caused him to stumble to his own legs, which along with his high running speed caused him to lose his balance, fall over to the ground and roll rapidly the rest of the way to inside of the dustbin, after which Judy and Nick quickly sealed with the cover, capturing Duke for good.

However, even though Judy and Nick returned to Ralph his wallet after taking it to be analyzed in order to find Duke's paw prints on it to confirm the weasel as the offender and to be used as an evidence against him in a trial, in which Duke was sentenced to spend a few months in jail after he was found unable to pay the fines, the thanks from Ralph weren't quite pleasant. Especially when the impala had found all money and everything else - especially his debit card, except his driving card and the family picture - gone from his wallet. And in addition of that, despite Judy's attempts to calm him down and explain the reality of the situation, the impala had firmly complained the well-being of his wallet, which was damaged in the weasel's claws that had torn his wallet's outer side to the shreds, and yet it was dirty and it smelled disgusting like it was found and picked from the garbage can - which Nick had confirmed.

And stubbornly refusing to listen the reason coming from Judy and Nick, the ungrateful impala behaved like he wished that they will never cross paths again.

However, after Judy and Nick had found a perfect parking spot from nearby the theater to where leave their cruiser for a moment and headed to the doors of the theater to ask for meeting with Ralph and question him about the theft in the theater, the encounter with the impala was far from warm.

In addition of his deeply disappointed that he had once again crossed paths with the certain officers whom he didn't even want to meet anymore - still blaming them for the poor condition of his wallet even after two months - his second reaction of a loud groan out of deep annoyance, hinting that this wasn't the first time he had have in his theater such of visitors like ZPD officers before Judy and Nick.. and all with the same reasons and intentions: "coming to ask from him a few question about the robbery in his theater".

And in their eyes, Ralph behaved like such of sourpuss.

"I already told to three of your guys, that we have no a new information for so a light robbery. A few costumes, a worn theater coats, just disappeared during the night about two weeks ago. Whoever stole them, he or they probably had the cold and they just wanted some warm to dress for the cold nights. That's all." Ralph said impatiently.

However, Judy didn't buy impala's answers. At least not completely.

"Isn't there even traces of burglary? A footprints, breached locks or broken windows or other fragile? Is there even anything which was carelessly left behind by the ones who broke into your theater?" Judy asked, starting to get herself pretty impatient to impala's stubbornness.

"Two weeks and I heard those questions once again." Ralph sighed out of frustration.

Ralph then turned to Judy with a mockingly calm and friendly expression on his faces.

"Well, officer Hopps. Your fellow blue-coats already investigated the whole crime scene. And I'm telling you, for the one last time, that there's nothing those who broke into my theater left behind from their break in: no traces, no breached locks, no broken windows, no broken fragile, not even footprints. At least some crooks are civilized enough to leave the place and all stuff in one piece, unlike some ZPD officers. So you're just wasting my time in here by repeating the same two weeks old questions to which the blue-coats earlier and you two already got your answers! So off you go now. Go on! Beat it!" Ralph harshly demanded and was about to start pushing Judy and Nick towards the backdoor of his theater to kick them out personally without the public seeing it and labeling it as an assault to officer.

However...

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa and whoa! Wait for a minute, Ralph! What if I suggest that we change the script of this?" Nick offered, gesturing with his paws Ralph to wait before he could kick them out. Groaning in annoyance, a frustrated impala reluctantly held himself back from kicking the officers out and crossed his arms to listen what Nick had to say.

"Well... What I was about to propose was that what if we skip the questioning and you allow us to investigate the crime scene in behind the scenes with our own eyes to see that is there anything what our guys left unnoticed during the last time ZPD visited in here. Can we at least go to check the crime scene yet again?" Nick asked, trying to somehow to facilitate this already tensed interrogation and to avoid the tedious war of words.

Ralph gave Nick a reluctant and negative look... Meaning 'no'.

"No, you can't. Besides, even if I would allow you to go to investigate the crime scene in behind the scenes, I'm pretty sure, you'll not find anything about the small burglary. That's sure." Ralph answered and continued pushing the duo away. "Now go on! Beat it! Get out of here before my kids returns from their tramp. We're already too busy for preparing our next performance event for tonight and I don't want a delays nor interruptions... especially from ZPD" Ralph said impatiently.

And when the duo resisted, Ralph reacted to it by grabbing from Judy's ears and lifted her up off the ground, holding her in the air painfully from her ears hanging and struggling form like some kind of rug doll while heading and keeping pushing Nick roughly towards the backdoor.

"Hey! Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey buddy! You can't do that to the officer! That is labeled as an assault on ZPD officer! You are in big trouble if they find out that you're doing that to the police officer! So you better let go off officer Hopps' ears and put her down at once, and you may get away from this with a strict warning! And if you don't you're in the real problem!" Nick growled, but Ralph didn't care.

"I said, off you go! NOW! And when I mean it, I MEAN IT! CLEAR?!" Ralph yelled in frustration and kept roughly dragging the duo away from his theater.

Such of impatient behavior from that sourpuss impala kinda hinted to Nick that maybe Ralph knew something about this burglary what he did not want neither him or Judy to know. Recalling to the reports about the said burglary in Ralph's office in the case files Bogo gave to them, Nick remembered that the officers whom were sent to investigate the crime scene in behind the scenes in this very same theater, had said in their report that they had found nothing from the crime scene which could have hinted to the burglary. Nothing was broken, door locks and window glasses were intact, there was not even footprints or fingerprints, or anything that could have referred to the burglar. The only objects that were reported to be missing were a few costumes or coats, which Ralph had already claimed to be old and worm and he seemed not caring if they were stolen.

However, Nick knew that he and Judy needed to have a better look from behind the scenes, so he started to look around to see something useful to either hustle Ralph of turn his attention from them into something else.

Then, Nick spotted the trio of skunks on the streets, spraying the liquid perfume to theater's wall next of the front doors, mockingly writing. "Ralph is sourpuss!"

And that wasn't all. Those street punks had mischievously printed the comical glasses and mustaches to the several posters of late or future performances in the wall.

"Hey, Ralph! Do you know those guys?" Nick asked, gesturing Ralph to look to the direction where Nick was pointing his finger... at the skunks.

After seeing the skunks with his very own eyes, Ralph sighed in fury releasing his grips from Judy's ears and back of Nick's Neck. Completely forgetting the duo, though most likely only temporarily, Raph turned his full attention and fury from Judy and Nick to the skunks and started walking menacingly towards them.

"I already told you, punks! Stay away from my theater or none of you will not sit down for a week!" Ralph yelled at skunks in anger and frustration.

However, the skunks didn't run away for him like Nick had expected. However, once Ralph was outside of the doors, the skunks suddenly turned their backs to furious impala and bowed down, taking off their pants in the process and bending their backs slightly downwards that their exposed butts were pointed at incoming Ralph.

"Oh, sweet cheese and crackers!" Judy said in disgust, as she grabbed and pulled her ears onto her eyes to prevent herself from watching the skunks showing off their bare butts mockingly at furious Ralph, much to Nick's amusement, before the fox gently took from her paws and gently forced her to release her grip from her ears to uncover her eyes.

"Don't close your eyes, Fluff, or else you're missing the best part."

"You sadistic psychopath!" Judy snapped, scowled menacingly at Nick in belief that Nick was taking amusement of befouling her innocence by making/forcing her look at the skunks exposed butts... just like he did back then when he had taken Judy during of Mr. Otterton's case to Mystic Springs Oasis for information and clues, deliberately leaving from informing Judy about the place's true nature. Even today Judy could have sworn that she had seen through of corner of her eye Nick taking a full enjoyment of her deep discomfort in middle of the naked mammals... as a means to exact revenge for her trickery earlier on that day.

However, after uncovering Judy's eyes, Nick returned to looking at the ongoing moment just outside of the doors of the theater, and Judy begrudgingly turned her attention at it as well, expecting Ralph to giving spanking at least to one of the skunks for exposing himself in the public.

However, the skunks soon lifted up their tails that made even Ralph to halt himself.

"Uh, oh." Judy muttered, suddenly realizing what the skunks were about to do, and so did Ralph.

However, it was too late for Ralph to do anything to prevent this to happen, as the skunks sprayed the liquid perfume with a triple-shot on Ralph before running away his fury.

"AAAAAAAARGH! YOU LITTLE BRATS!" Ralph furiously bellowed at the running and mischievously giggling skunks as they disappeared behind of the corner.

Nick couldn't help but burst into laughter after seeing Ralph being sprayed and covered with the skunks' liquid perfume. Even Judy, whom was usually nonsense and serious one of the duo, couldn't help but let out the sweet giggling to escape from her lips, even if she tried to cover her mouth with her paws.

Soon, Nick observed Ralph's condition after he managed to halt his laughter.

An angry and definitely at the moment awfully smelling impala was at the moment furiously wiping the skunks perfume off himself with the handkerchiefs. And with his full attention away from them and from the mess of the sprayed pain in the wall and posters and from the very ideas of switching a ruined posters with a new and clean ones and wash the wall clean from its mocking writing - including a paying the visit in the shower - Nick saw the perfect opportunity and turned to Judy.

"Alright, Carrots! Let's go!" Nick said and gestured Judy to move deeper into the theater and towards the crime scene in behind of the scenes before that angry and stinky impala heads back inside.

And if the luck was on their side when Ralph comes back inside and notices them having disappeared, the strong stench would cover their own scents from Ralph's nose and their disappearance would led Ralph to consider that as the fact that they've already left from his theater on their own... before heading towards the shower in his apartment that is located in a small three-storey building right next to the theater. In fact, Ralph's theater and apartment are connected together and separated from each other with the door.

"Clever fox." Judy commented Nick's trick to turn Ralph's attention to elsewhere with the wide smile as they kept sneaking deeper into the theater.

Nick smiled her back, but gestured her to keep going. "Now let's keep hurry. I don't know how much time we have to investigate the crime scene to find something what the others didn't already found. Depends on how long it takes from Ralph to have a shower and later Wash the wall and replace the ruined posters with a new ones." Nick replied.

Once reached to the theater hall - after getting through of the locked doors leading to the hall, with the help of the picklock key what Nick had secretly kept carrying with him since his days as a con-artist in case of encountering the locked doors - Judy and Nick immediately headed to the behind of the scenes behind of the stage, where the crime scene was located.

And once there, Judy and Nick began their investigation by searching through of the theatrical costume storage, staff rooms and Ralph's office for traces of burglary and the clues of the offender.

The duo spend about one hour of searching, but it slowly started to look obvious that Ralph was right about what he had said: There was no broken windows. The doors' locks were in good condition and there was no trace of break-in in the doors. There was not even a strange footprints in the floor, nor the fingerprints in the doors handles or the other objects and the only scent in the atmosphere of the space belonged to impala.

And while searching through of Ralph's office, Nick found from Ralph's desk table his family pic about him and two impala children, whom most likely were Ralph's children, a son and a daughter, of which he had mentioned earlier. One of the kids,

Ralph's son seemed the be the older of the duo, about 9-10 years old, and he had the small spiraling horns that resembled greatly his father's big ones. Ralph's son had dressed to look like a "though fella" in the pic, as he was showing off as topless, revealing his a slim upper body in a good condition and a sharp-toothed piranha tattoo in his chest to show some toughness. He was dressed merely into a blue shorts and he wore a black sunglasses and a blue baseball cap on his head. The boy was also wearing a rap necklace: a gold dollar symbol on golden chain around his neck -probably to make him to look cool or something - and he was carrying in his arms a skateboard with the lightning bolt paint and there was a slingshot peeking from his short's pocket.

The doe, whom looked 7-8-years old, had no horns but was more slimmer than her brother. She had a thin waist and large hips, and she had dyed her fur to the shiny golden-brown. And just like Gazelle, she had a blond hair, which she had tied behind of her head into a ponytail. She had dressed into a strapless green muumuu-dress with white leaf patterns all over it. Like her brother, she also wore the black sunglasses and she had a tattoo of Hawaiian flower on her right shoulder.

Judy then appeared at the door of Ralph's office, where Nick was still observing Ralph's family picture out of curiosity and writing down in his memory every detail of Ralph's children's appearance.

"Hey, Nick!" Judy called, as loud that it startled deeply into Ralph's family picture focused fox that he nearly dropped the pic to the floor.

However, Nick narrowly managed to catch the pic from the air before it could totally slip off his paws, fall and break into the wall.

"Could you in the next time call me more gentler, Carrots? I almost dropped Ralph's family picture because of you." Nick slightly snapped at Judy. "Despite being the impala, Ralph's personality tells me that his temper is most likely at Bogo's level and equally explosive. I wouldn't want to be around - or even want to know what he would do _to me_ if he suddenly appears here and either finds his family picture lying in pieces on the ground and next to me or in the grip of my paws."

However, without even apologizing, Judy instead gave to Nick a teasing glare and a wide teasing smile on her lips. "Oh, why not, Slick? In fact, Nicky, you're sometimes in the need of a good old whacking you really deserve." Judy said, earning from Nick somewhat slightly offended look.

"Anyway, did you find something suspecting, Nick?" Judy suddenly asked, immediately putting aside her teasing side and focusing on their case, and started to walk from the door to Nick's side.

"No, Fluff. I didn't. Just Ralph's family picture and it isn't perfect for the clue." Nick said, as he briefly showed it to Judy to see, before Nick lifted the pic up and carefully put it back onto the table. And Nick also ensured that the pic was standing in the same position in the right place from where he had took it, in order to prevent Ralph from not knowing that someone had tampered with the pic. Of course he could not undo his obvious fingerprints on the pic's protective glass nor wash his scent from it, but Nick remained confident nonetheless about the fact that once Ralph finds this out, they're already gone and far from Ralph's reach.

Once Ralph's family pic was back in its place, Nick turned to look down at Judy. "What about you? Did you find anything?"

Judy only shook her head.

"Nothing." Judy revealed.

Nick let out of the disappointing sight out of his mouth.

"It starts to appear that Ralph was right after all. There's no any trace of the burglary nor any clues about the offender, Nick." He declared, sounding like he was going to give up a investigation in the behind the scenes already.

"Yeah, Slick. I'm getting the same feeling too." Judy responded, nodding in agreement with her partner.

However, all the time Judy had been in this room with him, Nick had failed to see that the bunny officer had wrinkled her nose for the several times and had created the disgusted expression on her faces... even holding from her nose with her fingers like to prevent herself from sniffing anything.

Well, now Nick noticed and almost immediately took an offense of Judy's behavior.

"What?! Hey! Hey, hey, hey, hey! I know what you're thinking, Carrots! Don't even think about that I didn't go in the shower the last night! Besides my for the foxes meant deodorant can't smell that bad." Nick said with self-defending attitude.

However, Judy hold up her paws at him.

"Calm down, Nick. It's not you who smells, but there's some sort of awful scent like the skunk would have been set loose in here here to fart the liquid perfume all around of the place… or then that nasty stench comes from outside or from Ralph! Did he just skipped the shower and put at first a washing his wall... even with the risk of letting the public know how awfully he smells right now?" Judy said with disgusted tone.

Nick was immediately dumbfounded when Judy mentioned the nasty stench in the place instead of the stench of sweat. Almost immediately Nick lifted his nose up and sniffed the air, catching up the stench - which ironically belonged to the skunk - and instantly closed his eyes and wrinkled his nose in disgust.

"Ugh! Your guess hit directly to the point! This place _DOES_ reek like the skunk." Nick stated.

"I guess that we're not gonna find anything from this gas chamber, Fluff. So what if we just leave and proceed next by questioning the victims of these scams. Maybe they have something to tell more about the criminals." Nick suggested.

"Agree." Judy responded with both rapid, positive and eager nod. "Then let's go, and Fast! Thanks to the skunk's stinky fart, whoever he was, I'm gonna soon faint to this scent. I have to quickly get out of here and then later pay a visit in the shower." Judy said in disgust and kept holding her tiny nose with her fingers until they exited from behind of the scenes.

Judy was a first one to leave from the stinking area while Nick followed right behind of her. However, even though he didn't want to sniff into his nose that awful stench, Nick out of nowhere recalled having sniffed the faint but funny-smelling stench - that faintly smelled like skunk as well - somewhere before earlier today.

However, willing to get out of behind the scenes, Nick didn't care and left for his and Judy's police cruiser to proceed investigating the case.

 **TO BE CONTINUED...**


	6. Chapter 6: Investigations

**WAVES OF SCAMS PART 6  
**

 **Investigations**

* * *

After leaving Ralph's theater - without Ralph knowing it because he still believed them having left during of those skunks' prank on him and having disappeared into his apartment for the shower - the duo spent the several hours of questioning all the victims of the scams, except Mr. Sullivan, in hope for more information what they've not yet told to ZPD after falling a victim to the the scam and crime. The duo also went through the investigation of the crime scenes for a couple times to find clues that could help them to proceed in the case.

There was not any problem about questioning gentler and helpful Po'anda Chinakiro, professor Gnu and Gazelle about their cases - and Gazelle was the most gentler and helpful from all of three and something from her information sounded kind of familiar to Nick at least - though each one of them was still upset of letting their themselves to be deceived by the mammals they though they could trust and thus losing something valuable to them because of it.

However, Rhinocerotidae was a harder one and more unwilling to cooperate with the duo than the other victims so far. And the rhinoceros was also about to forcefully threw both of them out of his house even without caring that they were the police officers and that he could be charged with the assault on the police officers, due of the rhinoceros blind anger and frustration of his "ex-girlfriend's" betrayal and theft. However, before Rhinocerotidae had time to give both of them a fiery and painful butt kick, Nick had tried his best to speak Rhinocerotidae out of it and calm him down by telling him that they were at his home just to help him by asking for more information about his case and search through the entire crime scene to find some clue, which could be very helpful for them to lead to and capture whoever did such of treacherous scam to him and return what is rightfully his. Luckily for them, fully convinced and hoping that Nick and Judy are successful to catch the criminal, Rhinocerotidae spared their butts and agreed to cooperate with them during of their investigation in his house.

Next, the duo arrived to Rocky Alley Street 7 in the Northern Woodland District, where Lisa Cougar lived. However, once ringing the doorbell and being responded by Lisa's mother who opened the door and invented the two to come inside, it was soon revealed to Judy and Nick that just like with Rhinocerotidae, the cougar girl was also gonna be a harder one to be questioned about the case in which she lost her saxophone.

From her precious daughter's state of mind deeply concerned Mrs. Cougar had informed to Judy and Nick that ever since her daughter lost her precious saxophone through of backstabbing scam, Lisa had nothing else but remained sulking in the corner of her room without coming out from there for a few days. And in addition of that, she hasn't even eaten and that she had denied access to her room from everybody, including from her own family members, which had left her parents and siblings to worry stricken.

When Judy and Nick had entered to Lisa's room, surprised to find her room's door unlocked and ignoring various notes of " _Access denied!_ ", " _Stay out!_ ", " _Go away!_ " and " _None allowed in!_ " attached to the door and from inside of the room coming angry demands to be left alone, they found a miserable Lisa Cougar having curled into the small hair ball in the corner of the room behind of her bed, both bitterly crying and tearfully lamenting out of her own blindness and loss of her precious saxophone.

While looking at her in this state and misery, Judy couldn't help but feel sorry for the crying young cougar for her lost, and she proceed by attempting to comfort the deeply depressed cougar girl with the motherly attitude and with the promises that they will somehow catch the one who dared to remorselessly do this to her and return her precious saxophone back to her, before Judy began gently interrogate Lisa for any even slightly important information she left from mentioning in her report to ZPD, slyly saying "... _and you can help us in fulfilling my promise - and have your personal payback for the crook who did this - best by telling if you remember any small details from the moment when your saxophone disappeared._ "

Moved by Judy's attempt to comfort her, willing to have her saxophone back and encouraged by Judy's promises to give to the saxophone-thief or thieves what they deserve, Lisa agreed to give to the duo anything she remembered and forgot to tell from the theft

And after Lisa had revealed Judy a few details that she had forgot to mention in her report to ZPD, Judy and Nick then departed back to their police cruiser to bring together all the old and new information about the scams.

Nick then began to use his talented mind of the con artist to find some information which would be very valuable knowledge for the con artists.

"Okay, all what we know so far is that there's about six mammals, five prey mammals and one predator. As much mammals as lately happened scams within two weeks. These mammals have most likely disguised themselves as employees such of secretaries, cooks, cleaners and gardeners and another two as teenager prey mammals, who unlike the four other mammals might in fact be teens. The main questions are… how and why they are doing this and when they are doing it again?" Nick said, eyeing the reports and newly received information.

Judy then turned to Nick to ask from him something. "When you were hustling the owners of the ice cream cafés, did you need to do anything else but disguise Finnick as your son and tell him to act like your son?"

Nick nodded, still proud of those successful hustles even though he was now police officer.

"You see, Carrots, only the pretense of an assistant is not enough in the such of moments such as one when I hustled both you and that sourpuss elephant… and especially in such one when we hustled with the risk of our lives Bellwether and her goons to confess their crimes against the predatory mammals. Both mammals have their own role in the hustle, not only one, or the hustle would be easily exposed and ruined. And just in case, we have to be another card hidden in the sleeve… like the missing wallet." Nick explained.

"But these guys are using disguises and they work alone, still they are successful in fooling their victims so easily." Judy said.

Nick had to admit that this was a quite hard nut to crack.

"Listen, sweetheart. Even though I was talented to hustle the people on my own back in the days when I used to live as a con artist, I mostly favored the partner in crime so that earnings would be much higher for me (and for my partner) to survive. And we mostly targeted our hustles to the cafes, never to the "Big Guys" of Zootopia unlike these guys. Even I have to admit that these guys are quite talented con artist for targeting the "Big Guys". Maybe even more talented than what I was." Nick said, sounding a bit jealous of that bitter truth.

Judy groaned in frustration as their investigation has been unsuccessful for now.

"What do you mean with the "Big Guys" of Zootopia?" Judy asked out of curiosity.

"Well, all those animals who are the public figures: such as rich businessmen, celebrities of media, popular culture or sports, the authorities and politics who have a great authority and influence to the city or this state." Nick explained. "I could actually count us as one of the public images for what we did for the city when Bellwether decided to play bad guy."

Judy chuckled as she shook slightly her head while starting the cruiser's engine and the duo headed back to the ZPD.

A bit later, the duo was in the midst of their driving journey back to ZPD until Judy opened her mouth to ask something.

"Did we get anything new from the victims?" Judy asked, without turning her eyes from the road.

Nick shook my head. "Not much. Mostly the same information what we already know. Except that some of the victims had felt something strange scent floating faintly in the atmosphere of their places a few days following the day when they were robbed. And that that some of the con artists words had been kinda… flattering." Nick explained.

Judy sighed again. She probably though that the scent of, dunno, rotten fish, and the flattering weren't much of a clues for them to solve this case.

Nick sighed in frustration as well, before he decided to let his brains rest a little bit leaned against his seat's back and fell in his own thoughts.

The silence continued almost the rest of the journey to the downtown.

But while driving in the city's streets, Nick recalled something from today and decided to voice it out to Judy.

"What do you think, Carrots? How do you think that interview has gone between Bogo and Zelda? Nick asked, breaking the silence at the same time.

"I don't know, Slick. But you know what? I've been thinking about this for a moment. Of course it is common to see news reporters paying visits in ZPD looking for news sources but Bogo doesn't usually take interviews every day, except when the press conference has been officially called to ZPD. Otherwise he's always quite busy, as all of us, to waste his time for one reporter." Judy answered.

Nick jumped up after I heard that "Quite busy".

"Quite busy, you say?" Nick questioned, before taking a sarcastic grin on his lips. "Yeah! that busy, that he hides in his office and watches himself dancing with Gazelle from his phone and Gazelle saying something like " _Wow, you're very impressive, chief Bogo_." Nick said, trying to imitate Gazelle as best as he could.

Both rabbit and fox burst into hearty laughter at this.

"The chief seems to be fond of flattery like everyone else, I can tell you that." Nick said after he finally got my laugh under control.

And then, something suddenly snapped in Judy's head that her own laughter stopped like to the wall, in addition of which her ears jumped upright incredibly fast and her eyes widened... and all of this after Nick mentioned the very single word "flattery."

"Excuse me, what did you said, Slick?" Judy asked in surprise and confusion.

"I said that even though our chief Buffalo Butt might have a stone-hard nature, he still have a some weak spot for flattery, which seems to have such of great effect on him. I guess that you remember from the first met with that Zelda Zebra, when she flattered Bogo with the nicknames: such as "the most reputed police chief Zootopia" and "the king of ZPD." That newszebra's flattery seems to working on him very impressively." Nick explained.

"So, that means that the chief Buffalo Butt isn't so stone-hard what I thought after _a-AAAAAAAAAAAAALL!_ " Before Nick was able to finish what he was saying clearly, Judy pressed the gas to the bottom and their cruiser suddenly - and totally unexpectedly to Nick - plunged to great speed with the sirens and the police lights on the rooftop of the cruiser turned on.

Nick, who was tightly attached to the back of his seat, watched in surprise and in horror as Judy drove with a furious pace through the streets, which was fortunately clean from the cars, much to Nick's relief, as the drivers of the cars had moved their vehicles aside out of the duo's way once the sirens and lights were on.

However, Nick still feared for the worst to happen, for example the car crash or accidentally driving over somebody.

"WHOA! WHOA! WHOA! WHOA! CARROTS! CARROTS! CARROTS! STOP! STOP! STOP! STOP! SLOW DOWN BEFORE WE CRASH TO SOMEBODY'S CAR OR RUN SOMEBODY OVER! BOGO WOULDN'T LOOK THAT WITH A PLEASED EYE AND WILL SIGN US TO THE PARKING DUTY!" Nick yelled at Judy, trying to get her to slow down because they were going dangerously too fast on the streets and through of the cars. However, despite her sharp hearing, Nick's words fell to the deaf ears.

"OH, SUCK IT UP, YOU BIG BABY! HAVE YOU EVER PLAYED THE GAME SERIES: GRAND RACCOON CITY*? IT'S ALWAYS LIKE THIS!" Judy shot back as she drove.

"IT'S JUST A GAME, JUDY! LET'S JUST FOCUS ON REALITY!" Nick shot back.

"IF YOU PLAY THE GAME'S DETECTIVE SIDE, IT'S ALWAYS LIKE THIS, SLICK... ESPECIALLY IN THE CASES OF CAR CHASES AND EMERGENCIES!" Judy countered.

Nick rolled his eyes, turning to the streets. Even though many of the cars managed to pull over to give Judy and Nick a clear path to go, there was still some crashes between of the cars as the Wildehopps team drove through the street. However, those crashes weren't fortunately serious nor perilous to the cars' drivers, though the drivers ended up to shake their into fists squeezed paws and shout angrily after Judy and Nick when they passed them and left them behind.

"WE SHOULD THANK OUR LUCK IF BOGO DOES NOT GRANT US WITH DRIVING BAN FOR THIS JOYRIDE OF YOURS... EXCEPT IF HE'S GONNA PUT US INTO THAT RIDICULOUS THREE-WHEELED JOKE-MOBILE!" Nick said, voicing his concern about the possible consequences.

"JUST CALL TO CLAWHAUSER AND ASK HIM THAT IS BOGO AND ZELDA'S INTERVIEW STILL ON AND THAT ARE THEY STILL IN ZPD HEADQUARTERS! I HAVE A FEW QUESTIONS I WANT AN ANSWERS." Judy yelled at Nick, while she kept driving with the rapid pace.

Nick, knowing that Judy wouldn't answer to some questions of his about this, grabbed to the speaker nonetheless and took contact to Clawhauser and, as usually, through of speaker heard familiar munching. Probably Clawhauser was once again eating donuts on his desk.

"OFFICER CLAWHAUSER, THIS IS OFFICER NICK WI-IIIIIIIIIILDE FROM THE UNIT Z-240! BEFORE ANYTHING E-EEEEEEEEEELSE FROM BOTH YOU AND ME, WE NEED TO KNOW IS BOGO STILL IN HEADQUA-AAAAAAAAAARTERS WITH ZELDA ZEBRA?! O-OOOOOOOOOOVER! Nick yelled to the speaker as I tried to hold on from something when Judy made several sharp turns.

" _Zelda and Bogo aren't right now in the headquarter, Nick. They left to..._ " Clawhauser said through of the speaker, but he couldn't finish what he was about to say before Judy spoke, or more likely yelled, into Nick's speaker.

"WHAT?! WHAT DO YOU MEAN THEY LEFT?! WHEN DID THEY EVEN LEFT?!" Judy demanded.

" _Calm down, Hopps! Geez! You really are in tense mood today, aren't you?_ " Clawhauser said. " _Anyway, as I saying, both Bogo and Miss Zebra left to keep their interview at Bogo's home soon after you guys had left._ " He added.

"WHATEVER! CLAWHAUSERS! GIVE US BOGO'S HOME ADDRESS... AND WILL YOU CALL JUST IN CASE BACKUP THERE?" Judy requested.

" _What? Hopps? Wilde? What are you guys talking about? What's happening?_ " Clawhauser questioned in confusion.

"WE, OR AT LEAST OFFICER HOPPS, BELIEVE-EEEEEEEEEE THAT WE MAY HAVE A BIG CLUE TO THESE LATEST SCA-AAAAAAAAAAAMS!" Nick said, holding tight with his free paw from his seat as Judy made two another hard turns.

However, the second hard right turn ended up to be too sharp as their cruiser slidded screeching from their lane to the lane of oncoming cars that led their cruiser into the collision course with the ambulance car… THE ELEPHANT-SIZED AMBULANCE CAR!

"AHHHHH!" Judy screamed at the sight of the ambulance that was incoming straight towards them.

"CARROTS! HARD RIGHT! HARD RIGHT!" Nick barked as the ambulance was about five meters away from them and the distance between of the vehicles was rapidly closing, with the bigger vehicle's shadow covering their own cruiser.

Judy told as Nick barked her to do and quickly made the hard right turn to avoid the collision with the ambulance. The duo's cruiser managed just in time to dodge the ambulance and narrowly avoid the car crash, but only with the half a meter.

The rabbit gasped in shock after realizing that they were on the collision course with the ambulance car and she quickly made the hard right turn to avoid the collision. The duo's cruiser managed just in time to dodge the ambulance and narrowly avoid the car crash, but only with the half a meter.

Once the duo narrowly avoided the certain death, Judy, though petrified from the shock and narrow avoidance of the larger vehicle, managed to slam on the brakes, causing their cruiser to slow down bit by bit. However, the speed of their cruiser caused it to slip a bit forward, rubbing the tires against the tarmac that caused the sharp ears-deafening and shivers-giving sound.

However, their cruiser eventually stopped, though not without the hard push forward that nearly caused the fox and rabbit to fall forward... but thanks to their seat belts, they didn't.

Both Nick and Judy held his breath through the whole narrowly avoided car crash situation, until they finally let it out and started to breath heavily out of relief, collapsing onto their seats' back while panting in relief.

However, their moment of relief was short-lived when Nick turned to Judy to check that was she alright.

"Judy! Are you alright?!" Nick asked, checking her condition just in case.

The rabbit was still in shock and breathed rapidly and heavily, but she nodded nonetheless. She didn't even take her eyes from the wheel nor turned to look at Nick. Only what she could do was to reply with the panting voice. "I'm fine...(panting)... I'm fine."

"I don't know what the hell was that, Fluff, but no more Grand Raccoon City-styled joyrides, okay? You almost got both of us killed with that." Nick scolded her, though not daring to rise his voice too loud than necessary, despite the fact that the adrenaline was at the level that he could have even barked at her as loud as he could.

"I know, I know...(panting)... I'm...(panting)... I'm sorry...(panting)... sorry about that, Slick! It was just...(panting)... It was just...(panting)... I didn't...(panting)... I didn't meant to go...(panting)... go in style of...(panting)... style of Grand Raccoon City. I...(panting)... It was just like...(panting)... just like you...(panting)... you said to Clawhauser that...(panting)... that I believe we...(panting)... we have a clue...(panting)... clue to solve these...(panting)... these scams. And that...(panting)... that clue is...(panting)... is that newszebra. I have some...(panting)... some questions I...(panting)... I want to ask...(panting)... ask from...(panting)... her." Judy said in self-defense and loosely explaining her motives to go with such of hurry and rapid pace.

Though knowing Judy's nature and understanding her hurry in the case, Nick could clearly see that Judy's own adrenaline was even in higher level than what his own was.

It was then when Clawhauser's frantic and almost panicking voice was heard from the speaker. " _UNIT Z-240, RESPOND! I REPEAT, RESPOND! HOPPS?! WILDE?! ARE YOU GUYS OKAY! WHAT HAPPENED?_ "

Nick immediately grabbed to the speaker to respond.

"This is officer Nick Wilde from unit Z-240. Everything is fine and we're okay. But we really need you to give us Bogo's home address and the backup there, Claw. It's about the case we're solving. Over." I said to the speaker.

" _Are you guys sure you're alright? I heard the panicking scream and the sharp sound of the tires rubbing against the tarmac. And why do you need to go to Bogo's? You know that he does not like the interruptions... especially when you arrive there with the backup in midst of interview._ " Clawhauser questioned in confusion.

Nick rolled his eyes. "Just do it, cheetah! We'll explain you later!" The fox officer shot back quite loudly and impatiently.

" _Okay, okay, you do not need to shout._ " Clawhauser said and gave the duo Bogo's home address.

"Thanks, Claw. Unit Z-240 is on the move and will see the backup at Bogo's. Officer Wilde out." Nick said and hang up, and turned to Judy.

"Okay, Carrots. Our next stop is in Cape Street 4, at Bogo's home. And... what if I drive the rest of the day?" Nick offered gently, feeling that Judy needed a little to relax and let her adrenaline to lower to the maximum level enough for her to recover from the shock.

After Judy gave him a nod in agreement, Nick shut down the engine and gently lifted her off the driver's seat and placed her to sit onto the passenger's seat, putting the seat belt on as well, before he himself climbed out of the cruiser and settled himself to sit on the driver's seat.

And once putting the seat belt on, Nick started the engine again and drove off, this time with a normal driving speed but he kept the sirens and lights on.

 **TO BE CONTINUED...**


	7. Chapter 7: At Bogo's home Part 1

**WAVES OF SCAMS PART 7  
**

 **AT BOGO'S HOME PART 1.  
**

* * *

Judy asked Nick to drive to Cape Street 4 as fast as possible, but not with the crazy speed this time, with the police lights turned on.

During of making their way to Bogo's home, she explained to Nick why she had the hurry to get back to ZPD.

Nick did his best to listen, though the fox had to put majority of his focus in driving the cruiser.

"My suspicions arose as soon as you mentioned "flattery" and how Zelda was flattering chief Bogo back in the ZPD before we left to investigate. The victims of the latest scams also told us during of questioning that they were also flattered with the pleasant nicknames, about their skills and fame and so on, before launching the scam upon them." Judy said after checking the reports and our gathered information through yet again.

"How does that relates to the cases we're trying to solve?" Nick asked as bit confused.

"Well, the flattery seems to be familiar to you. Isn't it, Nick? You've always used manipulative or sarcastic words to sneak in and out the situation back in your days as con artist. Maybe these con artists are using the same trick to sneak in, but not out." Judy explained, reminding Nick about his ways to get his way, for example how he did in the cafe on that day he met Judy.

"I'll keep them a small but serious discussion about stealing others tricks like that." Nick said sarcastically and fake-seriously.

Judy giggled sweetly to this.

"Well, and to what kind of people these con artists are lately used their flattery to sneak in?" Judy asked with the sly grin on her face. "Who are the victims?"

Nick then fell under his thoughts after that question.

"Well, If we count in the stupid rich wolf, famous panda film-director, the old wildebeest professor, the famous rhino bowler, the pop-star gazelle and teenager cougar who is a famous saxophone player. I'll say… It seems that our con-artist-friend or friends are targeting those guys who are pretty popular mammals or they're known by the another way in this city." Nick answered.

"Bingo! Zootopia's notables, and just as you called them "Big Guys", you smart fox!" Judy said loudly. "And as that newszebra said, Bogo is one of those guys. After all, he is the police chief and one of the most notable mammals of Zootopia" Judy added.

"So, you're believing that Zelda is one of those con artist?" Nick asked and Judy gave me the serious nod.

"I'm not yet sure about that, how else she would have been able to get through of Bogo's "stone-hard" nature?" Judy said.

"But something tells me that Zelda might know something about the other con artist and the scams. If she's still with Bogo in his house, we could try to interrogate her more information about this crime wave." Judy said eagerly.

"Interrogate the newszebra after we catch her in the act, huh? That's the good plan. Now, can our little officer toot-toot tell to her ex-con artist friend that what would be the plan B if that so-called plan A fails after all?" I asked jokingly and with the wide grin.

Judy, however, rolled her eyes of my joke.

"Nick, that actually wasn't even the whole plan yet. I…" Judy had no time to finish when the duo arrived to Cape Street 4 that was in middle of suburban neighborhood at southern corner of Savanna Central and in the particular street address was standing a large blue house designed for the size of buffalo. Bogo's house no doubt.

Nick parked stopped our cruiser to front of Bogo's house before the duo jumped out from the cruiser and hurried to Bogo's door.

Just as Judy was about to knock to the door, the duo found much to their surprise and confusion that Bogo's house's door wasn't even locked.

"By leaving his door unlocked like this, the chief is like asking the burglars to pay a visit." Nick commented, as the houses with open doors are usually a perfectly easier prey for the burglars.

However, before entering in, Judy knocked the couple times to the door and called Bogo a couple times by his title and name in hope for answers from chief.

They waited for fifteen minutes but there came no answer, so the duo had no choice but enter inside to Bogo's house.

There was the awkward silence inside of buffalo-sized house, which caused both Judy and Nick to suspect that there might be a trap, so they moved in slowly and carefully as the one group and their taser guns were revealed, checking every room on their way before moving further in.

"Chief Bogo?" Judy called out but there was no answer from the chief.

"Chief Buffalo butt?" Nick called out too.

Judy turned to glare at Nick with the disapproving look on her faces.

"Thank your luck if chief doesn't kill you for that." Judy said half scolding and half-sarcastic tone.

Nick merely smirked and shrugged his shoulders.

The duo kept moving towards the living room, but once they reached to there, there was waiting for them a shockingly surprising sight.

Chief Bogo was lying motionless on the table, on the top of coffee, which was spread on the table from the overturned coffee cup.

"OH, NO! CHIEF BOGO!" Both Judy and Nick screamed in shock when they saw Chief Bogo like this… and there was no trace of Zelda anywhere.

Judy watched the chief in shock, fearing that they had arrived too late to stop this.

"What she had done to him?!"

Nick and Judy walked slowly towards Bogo, quite unsure was he still alive or not. There wasn't empty bottle with the skull image, which would have been perfect evidence of poisoning, nor the bloody knife stabbed in the chief's back.

Nick attempted to remained calm despite of this, but Judy was already horrified of this - her ears were hanging behind her head, her eyes had widened from the shock, she had lifted her paws up and over her mouth and she was breathing rapidly - as she feared the worst.

"Is… is he… dead?" Judy asked with whispering and shocked voice.

Nick leaned towards the table on top of which Bogo was lying motionless. There was nothing else than the felled coffee cup and the mother of all coffee stains.

However, Nick turned his attention first to Bogo to check his status first and foremost.

Because Nick was the fox and the chief was the cape buffalo, meaning not only that he was larger than him but also heavier than him, it was impossible for both of them to even try to get him on his back to the floor and give to him… you know… resuscitation as First Aid, so Nick just checked only his pulse, his eye sight, and placed one of his ears to his left side to check out that was his heart alive or is he still breathing.

Well, his pulse seemed to be somewhat normal and there was the light in his eye.

And while listening his breathing and heartbeats with his ear, both of them seemed to be in function

However, to Nick, Bogo's heartbeats were like beating with a sledgehammer the big bells and he breathed like he was filling two balloons inside of him.

And in addition of that, the chief was snoring pretty loudly.

"Chieff buffalo butt will live. He's just fell in the deep sleep of lioness princess." Nick informed, sarcastically referring to the film Sleeping Feline, starred by the famous and beautiful lioness named Kiara . "But there's definitely no way I'm gonna kiss him awake!"*

Judy almost let out the deep sigh of relief, until she got something in mind.

"Fell in sleep? In the middle of the day?" She said loudly.

"Why not, Carrots? You know, if you work so hard and the very long days without the break or sleeping, you'll always get so exhausted after the day's work that you fell under the sleep on your couch always before you even notice it." Nick theorized.

Judy rolled her eyes and sighed loudly in frustration to Nick's comment.

"No, no, no, no and no, Nick! I don't believe that this is about the exhaustion. I mean, Chief Bogo, as the chief and holding a big responsibility, works always longer than anyone else in the force. Even at night, if necessary, but he's also the one of the strongest mammals in the force, like elephants, rhinos, hippos and bears. Such of animals like him will never get that tired so easily." Judy explained.

Nick crossed his arms, a bit confused but still understanding what Judy meant.

"Then, how you can explain this?" Nick asked, a bit sarcastically.

"Because you have excellent sense of smell, can you please sniff the cup a little?" Judy requested.

"Please?" she added as she kept her ears behind of her head, widened her eyes very big and took a wide pleading grin on her lips.

Such of expression was one of those many things Nick couldn't resist, even though she didn't want to be called as such, so Nick did as Judy told him to do.

Nick picked up the cup from the table and sniffed it a little. He instantly felt the strongly fainting scent in his nose even after sniffing couple times.

"He is probably drugged, with the drugs or chloroform or something." Nick informed.

"Maybe it would be best to call the doctor... just in case." Judy said and Nick nodded as agreement.

Suddenly, from behind of the corner appeared unexpectedly the large and old-looking grey furred and bearded timber wolf, with the doctor's jacket, a briefcase and a small hat. His sudden appear out of nowhere startled both Judy and Nick a little.

"Don't worry, officers! Doctor is already here, Dr. Lupus by name!" The wolf said, introducing himself.

Nick turned to Judy with the questioning expression.

"Carrots, I though you had the sharp sense of hearing. Weren't you supposed to hear that stranger's footsteps already before he even appeared to the scene?" Nick said a bit accusing tone.

Judy took now a defending but, in her turn, scolding look as well.

"Yes, but I was a bit too focused to this situation what we have now in our paws." Judy said defending herself.

Here it came. The brief war of the words came between of the fox and the rabbit about the doctor's sudden appearing to the scene without detecting him and without even having time to call to him, until Lupus stepped into between of officers.

"Officers, officers. Calm down! Doesn't we have already the more important thing in our paws, like finding out what happened to our poor chief Bogo?" Lupus asked from them with a bit scolding tone.

Both of the officers calmed down immediately.

Nick took immediately a skeptical look at our so-called doctor.

"And how our new Dr. Lupus-friend happened to suddenly appear to the scene, even thought we did not even call for help yet?"

"It's simple, my dear officers. Bogo managed to ting me before his fainting." Dr. Lupus simply answered.

"What? He did?!" both Judy and Nick exclaimed in union.

That was a bit odd, because the table where Bogo was sitting or lying on was in middle of the room and the room's only landline phone was on the wooden stand in the corner at the other side of the living room and it looked as if none had not touched it at all.

So there would not be way Bogo would have called the doctor to the scene, because if he had, he would have been lying on the floor at the moment instead on the table.

"If you were keeping him the company, can you tell me when exactly he fainted?" Dr. Lupus asked from the duo.

"Well, we actually weren't in here when this happened. We just arrived here from our investigation about the lately happened scams against the notable mammals of Zootopia, and we found Bogo like this." Judy explained.

"He had with him the only one mammal to keep him a company, the newszebra named Zelda the Zebra, who was going to keep the interview with Bogo today, but we never expected that they were gonna keep it in his house rather than in ZPD headquarter. He probably had something what he did not want other officers to know." Nick included.

Judy then slightly nudged Nick and pointed his speaker on my shoulder.

"Speaking of other officers, wasn't backup supposed to be here in minute?" Judy asked, to which Nick made a bit confused look.

"Maybe… they're lost while on their way here or something." Nick guessed simply.

Judy of course shook her head in disagreement to his answer.

"No, Clawhauser at least knew where Bogo lives, so it's not impossible that the other officers do not know where Bogo lives." Judy stated.

"Well, that means that Clawhauser maybe forget the whole sending the backup here thing." Nick sighed in frustration and grabbed to his speaker. "Better to make contact with him again and ask him that what's taking so long with the backup to arrive."

But before Nick could even turn his speaker on, from behind of the same corner appeared a new character top the scene. This time, it was a light orange-furred female cheetah in the ZPD officer uniform.

"No need, fellow officer Wilde. The backup is here already." The cheetah said.

This was just getting too confusing to Judy and Nick.

"You? You're the backup?" Nick questioned, now too confused about the entire situation. One officer mammal is usually a patrol of one mammal, not backup.

"And who are you, if may I ask?" Judy questioned with the serious tone.

"My name is officer Duma Rapid, from ZPD." Cheetah officer said and pulled out her badge to show both Nick and Judy.

Judy and Nick looked at each other baffled but also suspicious about these suddenly appeared guys.

"Well, that's odd, because I don't remember seeing you in ZPD's headquarter." Judy said because she already knew every officer and other staff in the force.

"And the backup is more likely over dozen than one mammal. So you can't be the backup." Nick added.

"To be honest, I'm from a different district and police team. I'm just passing through, until a reporter called me the incident what happened here." Duma said calmly.

"What? A reporter? But we…" Judy began, more than just a bit confused about all of this.

Nick found that information as odd as Judy did, and he began to wonder that was there really another Police Station than just ZPD's headquarter as this Duma claimed?

Suddenly, Nick turned his attention back to doctor, who seemed acting a very nervously when this cheetah cop appeared. And he even tried to sneak away.

Well, Duma noticed that too.

"Hey, where you think you're going, mister?" she asked sternly from the doctor.

"I'm just trying to find a bottle of medicine, to find out that what drugs has been given to chief Bogo." the doctor replied before disappearing into the house.

Strangely enough, Duma also seemed to be a bit nervous-looking as the doctor was and hurriedly ran after him.

"Right! And now, if you excuse me, fellow officers, I'm going to find the clues the clues." Duma said, as she was about to make in Judy's and Nick's eyes somewhat suspicious-looking haste exit from the living room.

Both the fox and the rabbit officers just stood there next of unconscious Bogo, looking after those two with the dumbfounded expressions on their faces as they left one by one from the living room.

Nick suddenly broke the silence. "Hey, hey, hey! What about Bogo? Doc? Shouldn't you be checking his condition or what?" the fox officer said, though he recalled that he had already checked Bogo's condition already a moment ago before these guys appeared.

"You two stay with him until we find something." Doctor yelled from the house.

Both Judy and Nick snarled out of frustration to this.

"Yeah... this was supposed to be our case, but it seems now that that non-cop doctor and that strange cheetah cop took our case before our noses." Nick said sarcastically.

 **TO BE CONTINUED...**

 ***** Reference to Disney's 1959 film Sleeping Beauty.


	8. Chapter 8: At Bogo's home Part 2

**WAVES OF SCAMS PART 8  
**

 **AT BOGO'S HOME PART 2.**

* * *

Well, Judy and Nick what they were told for the next passing fifteen minutes: watching over sleeping Bogo.

The duo was starting to get tired of watching over their sleeping chief of police while waiting for the return of a strange cheetah cop and a strange wolf doctor, who were still seeking the clues of incident and the bottle of drugs from Bogo's house.

Suddenly, they heard sleepy grunting from Bogo's mouth.

"Did you heard that?" Nick asked eagerly.

"Yeah, I did." Judy answered and jumped onto the table.

"The drug maybe wasn't quite strong." she said and began to shake Bogo to wake.

"Bogo? Sir? Wake up!" Judy urged.

Nick decided to give his helping hand and climbed onto the table himself.

"Woo-hoo… chief buffalo butt?! House is on fire! Everybody up and out and quick!" Nick exclaimed loudly in order to wake Bogo.

However, Bogog didn't wake up.

"Didn't you heart me?! House is on fire! WOO-HOO! HALLOOOO?! Time to wake up you lazy buffalo butt or do I have to go pick up the horn?"

When Bogo didn't wake up on that, Nick reached to the horn he was carrying with him and prepared to make a loud sound right next of Bogo's left ear, only to be stopped by Judy before he could press the trigger.

"If I were you I wouldn't do that, Nick." Judy said and took the horn away from Nick's paw like the mother taking a dangerous stuff away from the child.

"Well, have you a better idea then, Carrots?" Nick asked, frustrated.

By looking in Nick's eyes, Judy could see Nick's boredom and frustration all too well, until suddenly, the rabbit pointed with her finger at the door leading to another room where those two strangers had just went.

"If you want some action, Slick, go there and check what those two creeps are doing there and why it's taking so long from them to come back." Judy ordered.

The wide grin then appeared to Nick's lips after hearing and realizing that what Judy had just asked him to do.

"No need to tell me twice, Fluff." Nick said, as he immediately jumped off the table and headed towards the door.

However, before he could even enter to the room, Nick suddenly halted and started to sniff the air.

"Nick, what's wrong?" Judy questioned.

Nick kept sniffing the air, till the fox officer wrinkled his nose and shivered in disgust.

Nick then turned to Judy while covering his nose with his left paw.

"Do you smell that?" he asked with the muffled voice.

Judy lifted her nose up to the air and sniffed, until the rabbit officers eyes shot wide open as she picked something from the air with her nose. Judy instantly grimaced in disgust and lifted her arm over her face to protect her nose from so bad smell.

"Ugh! Yes, I do! Did you let out the fart again, dumb fox?" Judy asked, disgusted.

That was a quite offensive question in Nick's opinion.

"No, I didn't!" Nick exclaimed, offended of being accused for farting what he didn't even do.

"But I think that I did pick up that kind of smell in my snout somewhere earlier... like then when that newszebra, whatever her name was again, was nearby back in the headquarters." Nick explained. "The scent is weak but but not unrecognizable."

Judy let out the sigh and rolled her eyes.

"Who cares about the scent, Nick? Zelda probably had a poor hygiene... for the woman. Now go after those two!" Judy demanded.

"Alright, alright! As you command, my sensitive-nosed mistress." Nick said, giving a teasingly bow at Judy before turning back to the door and going after those two.

It did not take long from Nick than a five minutes to search through the rest of the house for those two, until Nick found both of them from Bogo's bedroom.

However, instead of carefully searching for clues or the bottle of drugs as they had said, both of them were hurriedly and carelessly rummaging Bogo's bedroom's closets and drawers, without caring about the mess they had already caused in the bedroom.

"Hey! What do you think you guys are doing?!" Nick exclaimed after having them caught in the act.

Both the cheetah cop and the wolf doctor were startled by Nick's suddenly loud voice, like they hadn't expected him to arrive to the scene, before they turned to look at him.

"Two facts about your so-called "search" for the clues of drugging the chief of police: One, the work's process is noticeably poor, slow and needlessly messy. And two, that looks more like ransacking the house rather than searching." Nick pointed out.

"Blasted! That fox is too curious!" Duma stated while she was ransacking Bogo's green closets.

"You're right! A too cunning mammal like his kind is difficult to fool. " Lupus said while the wolf was ransacking Bogo's drawers.

Suddenly, both of them quit the ransacking and turned to Nick, with the offensive looks in their eyes.

"He and his bunny-friend do not know much yet, but let's make sure that they _don't_ know any more than this!" Duma said as she jumped off the green set she was standing on.

"Agree! Let's get him! Together!" Lupus shouted.

And all the sudden, both of them charged at Nick with their hands stretched forward to grab on Nick.

"Whoa, sweet berries and pawpsicles!" Nick exclaimed, mimicking Judy's "Oh, sweet cheese and crackers.".

Out of instincts, and remembering her training in close combat back in ZPD Academy, Nick quickly leapt from the door inside of the bedroom and out of apparently and certainly false cop's and false doctor's reach as they leapt on him. And with that, the pair failed to grab on Nick and ended up right after to knock their heads together.

Once the crooks were flying on the floor after accidentally knocking themselves out, Nick grabbed to the opportunity and rushed out of the bedroom to the other room, where was the door that led out of the house to the backyard of Bogo's house.

"I knew it! They're both con artists!" Nick let out as he hurriedly headed back to the living room to get back to Judy, and possibly awaken Bogo too, to have reinforcements to contain the situation of two-on-one.

This also got Nick to go through the situation in his mind.

"Two con artists and both predators. But none of them are not the same predators from the earlier ones! How many con artists actually are there yet?!"

Though Nick was naturally a swift from his legs, Duma, if it was even her real name, was even faster due to her species: the cheetah. And so, right after recovering from accidental head-butt with Lupus and getting back on her feet, Duma moved fast like a lightning to block Nick's way into the living room with her body.

"Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-haa! Slow like the slug!" Duma laughed boastfully.

"Whoa!" Nick yelped in surprise as he quickly halted his pace.

Suddenly, Nick winced and let out the loud yelp in pain as Lupus came from behind and grabbed from his tail and painfully pulled the fox officer back to him.

"Gotcha, copy!" the wolf doctor taunted as he was about to pull Nick off the ground by his tail.

"Ow! OW! OW! Trust me, fake-doctor! If you were me, you'll know how much that hurts!" Nick snapped to the wolf.

Suddenly, Nick turned around and leapt between of Lupus' legs to his backside. This unexpected act caught Lupus totally out of surprise. And because the wolf was still holding tight from his tail, Nick's sudden move pulled him hard down and eventually flipped him over, sending him to fall onto his back to the ground.

So called Dr. Lupus groaned in pain after landing on his own tail.

"Now you know how I felt!" Nick shouted at the wolf, who slowly and groaning crawled back on his feet.

With the claws extended from her fingers and with her feline fangs bared, Duma lunged at Nick at once from the entrance to the living room, but the fox officer dodged her attack swiftly by turning around and jumping out of the way onto the wall.

Duma attempted right after lunge at him again, but the fake cheetah officer ended up to ram her own head to the same spot on the wall from where Nick bounced off to dodge the cheetah's attack. After the bounce, Nick flew upward and towards the ceiling fan hanging from the ceiling of the room.

The fan's rotation pace was not fast, so Nick managed to grab on one wing, which spun Nick around of the room's airspace several times.

Duma, ignoring the pain in her forehead, attempted to lunge at Nick once more, with her claws targeted towards the fox officer hanging from the ceiling fan.

However, Nick used something what HE had learned from Judy. For example, her "kick as powerful as kangaroo's or donkey's" to defend himself from incoming feline predator. So, when the ceiling fan swung Nick towards the lunging cheetah, Nick kicked her in the face and sent her flying onto of her wolf accomplice.

"Delicate like the rag doll!" Nick said to Duma.

And right after that, Nick let go of the ceiling fan and flew onto Bogo's kitchen's table.

The crooks quickly recovered and jumped back on their feet to continue their hot pursuit of Nick, now even angrier than ever.

The wolf doctor attacked Nick by his turn, growling and barging in a savage-like rage, even though he wasn't under of Bellwether's Night Howler sickness.

However, even a single glance of the wolf doctor in the savage-like attitude prompted Nick to run for a dear life. So the fox officer, spotting the escape route out of the kitchen to other room, jumped off the table onto the big chair's back and leapt into the next room.

After leaping there, Nick got a good view of the room. The room next to Bogo's kitchen was the dinning room, where was a quite big and long dinning table on which Nick had just landed, around of which was standing the row of chairs for a dozen... more likely for a two dozen... mammals. Big mammals, because the chair's maximum design is for the buffalo-sized animals.

"Hmm... the chief has either a lot of friends among the big mammals or else a big buffalo-butt family." Nick commented.

However, the canine-like bark from the kitchen got the fox officer to turn around, only to see Dr. Lupus lunging at him from the kitchen's table.

"WHOA!" Nick exclaimed in surprise, before the fox officer turned around and started to hurriedly run towards the other side of the dinning room and the table to get away from Dr. Lupus, managing to avoid Lupus's attack with the extended claws when the wolf landed onto the table, though just narrowly.

However, there was no another way out of the dinning room and the only escape route was out of here was now blocked by so-called Dr. Duma. And the doorway out of the kitchen was most likely blocked by the cheetah. He was trapped and cornered like the hunted prey animal.

"C'mon, brain cells! Think! Think! Think!" Nick said, banging his temples with his fists, as the fox tried to come up with some sort of plan to escape from this dead-end situation while running towards the other end of the table... with Dr. Lupus right behind on his heels, as the wolf ran faster by all fours than what he did with on two legs.

Suddenly...

"Surprise!" Duma suddenly exclaimed as the cheetah cop appeared from under of the table in the other side to where Nick was running.

She must have sneaked ahead of him from underneath the table.

Nick knew that he was now in a trouble, when two larger predators were surrounding him from front and behind.

There was also another problem, which Nick found out when he was trying to halt himself that he wouldn't ran straight into so-called officer Duma's claws.

Bogo must have polished the table shortly, because it was a quite slippery and Nick couldn't stop myself from "skating" along it towards Duma.

"Now we caught you!" Lupus shouted, grinning widely and stretching out his paws to grab him.

Nick quickly checked his surroundings for anything he could use as his advantage: from behind incoming Lupus, who wasn't aware of the table's slipperiness, to Duma waiting for him in the other end of the table. From the slippery table's surface to the dinning room's ceiling.

Nick then spotted the ceiling lamb hanging above of the table, and thinking quickly, the fox officer quickly came up with a sly plan to escape of the situation.

And so, Nick just kept "skating" along the table's surface while trying to maintain his balance and keep his current pace to escape from Lupus, who was still right on his heels.

"That's what you think, Lupus." Nick taunted before he jumped off the table and as high into the air as he could.

And a moment before Nick's sudden jump off the table, Lupus reached his paws forwards to grab to on the table skating fox officer and Duma lunged forward and was about to tackle Nick from behind... only to miss with the inch when Nick eventually jumped off the table into the air.

"Butterfinger!" Nick taunted Lupus as the fox officer grabbed to the ceiling lamp and remained to hang there above of the kitchen's table and the crooks.

Nick's sudden act to avoid being captured surprised both Duma and particularly Lupus so badly that it caused both the predators to ignore their surroundings and keep their eyes and focus on Nick.

However, as a result of that as Lupus was about to land on his front paws to the polished table, one of his paws slipped off from beneath of him and the false wolf doctor fell on his side to the table.

And as a result, Duma slid along and eventually off the table and flew into Duma, knocking the false cheetah cop off her feet and causing both Lupus and Duma fly into the wall shelf filled with dishes behind of their backs.

There was heard a loud "SMASH!", which hinted to that that the wall shelf got smashed when the predators flew onto it. That was instantly followed by as loud "CRASH!" sound when dozens of dishes inside of the shelf decomposed into pieces along with the shelf.

Aside of small cuts from the sharp-edged or -pointed pieces of wood and fragments of dishes, Lupus and Duma were in one piece, though tangled with each other.

"You Cabbage-brain!" Lupus yelled in anger to the wolf.

"Your fault, you travesty of the skater!" Duma shot back.

Such of sobriquets got Nick to chuckle, before the fox totally burst into laughter.

"Ha haa! Sly fox, one! Slippery wolf and dumb cheetah, zero!" Nick declared out of triumph, before the fox officer let go of the ceiling lamp and landed back onto the table and hurried to the kitchen and then to the doorway out of the kitchen.

Nick knew that Bogo was certainly gonna kill him after he finds out what had happened in his kitchen, but Nick had no time to worry about it right now.

Now he just needed to get back to Judy and Bogo in the living room.

"Judy! Judy! We're under scam attack! These two are…!"

Nick couldn't finish what he was saying until he spotted Duma in the living room, with her officer uniform partially in shreds and her officer cap missing.

And to Nick's shock, the cheetah got Judy into her claws.

The false cheetah cop had seized her by the ears and she had lifted her off the ground, hanging the rabbit in the air. Judy gritted her teeth from pain in her ears and tried to struggle to free herself from the painful grip, though it was a futile.

" _OW!_ …Con artist! _OUH!_ I... _OUCH!_ I know already. _OW!_ " Judy groaned between of her teeth and.

Nick targeted his angered eyes to Duma, who was grinning back at him.

"What? Did you forget that my species is faster than your own, fox?" Duma tauntingly asked, hinting that the cheetah had probably sneaked out of the dinning room's window and circled the house back to the front door and breaking back in from there.

"LET HER GO, YOU UGLY TRAVESTY OF THE COP!" Nick demanded, referring Judy in Duma's grip.

"Use a prettier language around women, Fox!" Duma snapped back and kicked Nick hard to his guts, sending him on his back over to the ground.

Judy, after seeing her partner getting assaulted like that by Duma, turned angrily at the cheetah. "Hey! You're gonna get a charge for assaulting the police officer! You're gonna be in a big troub... OW! OW! OW! OWOWOWOWOWOWOWOW!" Judy groaned in pain as Duma tightened her grip around of Judy's ears.

"SHUT UP!" Duma snarled.

Moaning in pain, gasping for the breath and holding his sore stomach with his paw, Nick attempted to stand up from the ground, only to be roughly pinned on his stomach to the ground by Lupus, who had just recently arrived to the living room and sneaked upon of Nick from behind.

Alike Duma, Lupus was also in a poor condition after Nick's recent trick. His own doctor jacket was more than partially in shreds and he had lost his glasses and doctor's hat.

While keeping weakly against his grip struggling Nick pinned in the ground, Lupus turned to Duma.

"What are we gonna do with these two?" Lupus questioned.

"They haven't seen our faces so there's no worry. Let's bind them first and then back to work. We've already wasted our time with these two killjoys." Duma said before throwing Judy next to Nick.

Duma then started to pull out a rope and gags.

 **TO BE CONTINUED...**


	9. Chapter 9: Turn of the Tide

**SCAM WAVE. Part 9  
**

 **TURN OF THE TIDE**

 **15 minutes later**

* * *

"Hold still, you two!" Duma snapped to Judy and Nick. "This will take longer, if you keep squirming!"

To make sure Judy and Nick would not interfere anymore nor to call for backup from ZPD, Duma and Lupus had taken away their speakers before they tied their paws behind their backs and their legs together. Then they tied them up back against back and finally gagged their mouths.

Luckily for Nick, these two had no muzzle with him. That would have been a torturous for Nick, if these two crooks happened to have a muzzle with them, due to the fox officer's strongly haunting experience with those things from his childhood's the most darkest day ever.

"Good so! The longer we keep you two in here, sooner you'll be arrested by the backup we already called here!" Judy said defiantly, though her words were muffled by the gag she had in her mouth.

After Judy and Nick were tied up and gagged, Duma was about to leave them to the room's corner to wait and wonder, what she and Lupus have planned to do for them.

While Duma was dealing with tying up and gagging the officers, Lupus was still going through the whole place as if the wolf doctor was looking for something.

While the crooks were doing what they were doing, Nick felt in his nose a very familiar, interest-catching while awfully bitter scent around and sniffed it again to confirm it. The fox officer found out that the scent was the very same scent what he had smelled in ZPD Headquarters, Ralph's theater and now here.

 _Interesting. Why does there smell the same smell of skunk in three places on the same day?_ Nick thought.

Suddenly, the fox officer was snapped out of his thoughts by Duma's suddenly and angrily raised voice.

"Hey what are you doing?!" Duma shouted angrily as the cheetah cop pointed her finger at Dr. Lupus, who was standing next to the large rhinoceros-sized red cabinet. And yet there happened to be the key already in the cabinet's lock, meaning that whatever was in the cabinet, it was now a sitting duck.

"Ha, ha, haa! It must be this! I won this round!" Lupus declared, as the wolf moved his paw towards the key in the cabinet's lock.

Lupus was about to open the cabinet and look inside, until Duma rushed to the cabinet, forgetting Judy and Nick completely.

"Hey, go back to your own area! This was my area and the cabinet, along with its content, is mine and mine alone!" Duma demanded.

Lupus, however, just grinned out of triumph-like. "Watch me!"

"I already told you after you attempted to sneak away! This is my case and I own the loot!" Duma stated.

"Have you ever heard about the old saying, "Finders keepers, losers keepers"? Lupus questioned teasingly.

As two preds started argument with each other about the cabinet and its content, Judy saw their opportunity to try to free themselves while their attentions were elsewhere.

The rabbit cop then nudged with her elbow Nick to his side to get his attention, and Nick peeked over his shoulder to see what Judy was up to.

With mouth gagged, Judy could not speak clearly. But she was able to communicate with Nick - well, kind of - by simply nodding her head and eyes towards the ropes around of their wrists, wordlessly asking Nick if he can use his claw to cut their ties off.

After realizing what Judy was up to, Nick extended one of his claws and started to slowly cut the ropes around their wrists.

Meanwhile, Duma and Lupus kept fiercely and stubbornly arguing with each other, until the argument turned into a punch-up when Duma suddenly lunged as Lupus.

The cheetah cop pinned the wolf doctor down to the ground and began to punch his faces repeatedly.

"Cheating is unfair!" she yelled at Lupus.

But as the cheetah and the wolf started wrestling with each other, Duma carelessly kicked the cabinet towards me and Judy.

Lupus of course noticed this.

"Hey! Watch it! The cabinet is falling!" he warned, but Duma was not listening. She was too focused to this childish fight with Lupus that she didn't notice it, nor cared about it, as she did nothing to stop the cabinet from falling over to the ground.

Duma merely lunged at Lupus more harder, having the upper paw over the wolf with ease.

Nick, meanwhile, had managed to cut off the ropes around of his wrists and was now cutting off Judy's own, until Judy started hastily scream Nick's name under her gag, Judy nudged Nick with her elbow even harder this time to get the fox officer's attention off from cutting her paws loose.

"Hey! What gives?!" Nick asked with the muffled voice under his own gag.

Nick peeked over his shoulder to see what Judy was up to now, 'till he saw her looking up in horror. Nick turned his eyes to the direction Judy was looking, and then his own eyes widened in horror.

The gigantic cabinet was right about falling on Judy and Nick. And because of its size, its mass and its extra weight whatever is inside of it, it was gonna crush both of them under of it! And with their legs and paws tied up, not to mention that they were tied back to back, so there was no way for them to try to stand up or roll away from the falling cabinet.

"OH NO! TOO LATE!" Judy screamed under of her gag.

"IT'S GONNA CRUSH US!" Nick screamed as well under of his own gag.

Both officers prepared to be crushed by closing our eyes and looking away from the falling cabinet.

However, before the whole thing had could land on them, Judy and Nick suddenly heard the loud grabbing sound against the wooden surface and then deep and throaty grunting coming from above of them.

Both Judy and Nick raised their heads up to see who it was.

It was chief Bogo. He had finally awaken from his drugs, and the buffalo had jumped into the scene just in time to grab the cabinet before it crushed both fox and rabbit officers, saving their lives.

"Nobody threatens my force's finest officers like that!" Bogo grunted loudly, while holding the heavy cabinet up in his hooved hands.

Bogo grunted more as the buffalo lifted the heavy cabinet back on its feet, before he turning to Judy and Nick, holding the knife in his hands.

At first, he removed the gags from Judy's and Nick's mouths, releasing them, before he knelt down and was about to cut the ropes with the knife.

"Don't cut the rope! Just open the knots! We need the rope for those two." Judy said before Bogo could cut even one rope.

"Okay. Just the minute." Bogo said and started to loose our bounds. "Luckily they used big ropes enough for the mammals like me to loose the knots."

After Bogo had freed both Judy and Nick, Judy grabbed to the rope and pointed the finger at the con artists, as the two of them were still wrestling with each other for the contains of the cabinet.

"Let's bind them, quickly!" Judy said.

Nick and Bogo nodded out of agreement and Bofo took out the paw cuffs.

Three police officers broke up the fight between Lupus and Duma by pulling them off from each other, before Bogo then cuffed surprised Lupus.

And after the wolf was in the paw cuffs, Judy and Nick tied Duma firmly with the rope she used to bind them. They also tied her feet with the ropes that Duma had used to bind their feet, making sure she cannot stand up and run away with her cheetah feet.

"There!" Nick said in relief, after Duma was tied up.

"Excellent work, officers Hopps and Wilde. Though there's still six con artists on the run, but at least we managed to catch two of them." Bogo congratulated both Judy and Nick with the proud smile on his face.

"We just do our job, sir. Nothing at all." Nick replied with the grin on his lips.

"Now we have to get these guys to talk. We need to know everything they know about their accomplices. Then we may be able to catch them all and make them to answer for their crimes." Judy said, to which Bogo nodded in agreement.

Nick then moved next to Duma and grabbed from her cheek, shaking her head slightly for fun.

"Sorry, honey, But unfortunately, you lost twice to this fox cop, and..." Nick started, until he suddenly noticed something weird.

The Duma had a cut in her cheek but not an ordinary cut because it did not even bleed. And in addition of that, the portion of Duma's cheek in between of his fingers as torn off when Nick pulled it back a little bit!

" _YELP! YELP! YELP!_ " Nick whimpered in shock.

"AAAAH!" Judy screamed, really freaked out.

"WHAT THE...!" Bogo exclaimed, immediately alarmed after hearing Judy's scream and my yelp in shock.

However, Nick forced himself to calm down as he eyed the torn piece from Duma's cheek in his fingers.

"Nick?" Judy said looking at him confused.

Nick rubbed his thumb in the torn piece of fur-covered "skin" from Duma's cheek. From outside, the cheetah fur felt a pretty real, but from inside it felt nothing like squishy and wet from blood. Actually, it felt like..."

Nick's eyes widened in confused.

"Rubber?"

Nick started immediately suspect a true color of these late scams, but he needed something to confirm it.

There was only one way to confirm his suspects. It was not going to be a pretty... especially in Judy's presence... but it needed to be done.

Nick then threw a piece of skin off from his hand and turned to face so-called "officer" Duma. Nick proceed by opening a few buttons in Duma's officer uniform to loose the neckline before the fox officer looked under of her shirt... and with some hesitation, Nick even moved his left paw inside of Duma's shirt while keeping the neckline open with his right.

Both Bogo and Judy - well, especially Judy - looked at Nick with dumbfounded looks on their faces.

"Wilde, what are you dong?" Bogo questioned quite loudly.

"Nick? What are you doing? Isn't that, you know, pretty disturbing for _her_ to do that? Isn't it?" Judy asked hesitantly... and with a hint of jealousness in her voice.

Nick sensed the "jealousness" in Judy's voice. And even though she couldn't believe what she had in her mind, it got him to smirk slyly.

"You heard the bunny, fox! That's harassment! Police brutality! Keep your paws off me, you freak!" Duma protested, feeling uncomfortable when someone was touching her from under of her shirt, and she tried to struggle against Nick's grip.

However, Nick forced the cheetah to stay still.

"Shut up!" Nick said sharply, though resisting the temptation to give Duma the slap to the face.

Nick then briefly turned to Judy.

"And as for you, Carrots. Three facts: One: this ain't what do you think." Nick started.

"Two: I'm feeling as uncomfortable of doing this as you might feel right now." Nick continued.

"And three: yes... this is a pretty disturbing. Especially when I'm doing this to a stranger - who happens to be a crook...and to the certain bunny I know. _Tsk, Tsk_!" Nick joyfully finished with the humorous grin, before winking his eye at Judy, before he kept looking under of Duma's shirt.

Judy was about to say something back, until she realized what Nick had just said and was immediately taken aback and left dumbfounded of Nick's remark, that also caused Judy's ears inner walls to turn into a red color and her cheeks to blush. However, noticing this, Judy lowered her ears against the back of her skull, crossed her arms and turned her blushed faces away from both Nick and Bogo.

"Dumb fox." Judy muttered out of frustration.

"I heard ya, Carrots." Nick chuckled.

"You're not helping, dummy." Judy shot back, a little irritated.

Nick then turned back to Duma and kept pushing his arm deeper into Duma's shirt, much to both predators' discomfort.

Ignoring Duma's disgusted sounds, protests, insults... including Duma spitting on his faces constantly, Nick kept palpating with his finger tips even deeper under her shirt, following the cheetah's skin's fur all the way down, until it suddenly stopped... right above of Duma's private area, much to Nick's relief.

As Nick kept palpating this "end" of the cheetah's skin, he found it odd that the skin felt to be loose and it was not attached to Duma's body. And when Nick found out that there was room between of the skin and Duma's body, it all dawned to him.

Mask?

Just as he suspected!

With that knowledge and out of curiosity, Nick moved his right paw inside of Duma's shirt as well, before the fox officer moved his fingers under of this fake skin's skirt from both frontal and backside. And when he was ready, Nick began to peel the mask off from the crook's head.

"Nick? What are you doing now?" Judy questioned.

"That is what I want to know as well." Bogo added.

As he kept peeling off the mask, Nick turned to both Judy and Bogo.

I have something to say about these two crooks and their so-called accomplices, Carrots and Chief. And that "something" is... that I think that we already caught our con-artists... all of them... with one strike." Nick said as he kept peeling the skin off from Duma's body and

Nick's theory began to dawn to Judy and Bogo when Nick pulled the peeled portion of Duma's cheetah-mask from under of her shirt and police uniform.

"Ladies and buffaloes. It's time to take the masks off and see whom we're dealing with!" Nick declared.

Though a bit reluctant to process the same thing Nick just did, Judy and Bogo moved to so-called Dr. Lupus and started to remove his own wolf-mask... after Bogo had Judy to dig out the mask's skirt from under of Lupus own shirt due to her small size.

And while doing this, the atmosphere around of Judy's nose was filled with the awfully bitter scent.

"Jeez!" the rabbit cop exclaimed with the grimace of disgust. "Smells at least five times worse than sweaty fur."

As Judy and Bogo got Lupus' wolf mask removed, Nick removed with the one last pull the cheetah-mask off from Duma's head, and the con-artists' true identities were finally revealed to the trio.

And when the predator-masks were taken off, Nick backed away a few steps to have a good look at the crook's faces.

However, after having a good look of both the crooks' faces, Nick gasped in surprise as if the fox did recognize the two of them immediately.

 **To be continued...**


	10. Chapter 10: The Revelations Part 1

**SCAM WAVE. Part 10**

 **REVELATIONS PART 1**

* * *

When the predator-masks were taken off and the crooks' true faces and the identities revealed to Judy, Nick and Bogo, all tree ZPD officers realized that the crooks weren't predators at all.

Their con artist-friends were in fact a pair of teen IMPALAS! One male and one female.

However, from all three officers, Nick was even more surprised as the one realization dawned on him.

"Wait for minute, I've seen you guys before!" Nick said loudly, recognizing the impalas immediately.

Judy and Bogo shared a confused looks with each other before turning to Nick.

""Seen these guys before"? What do you mean, Nick?" Judy questioned.

Nick turned to Judy and pulled out from his ZPD uniform's pocket a picture to show it to Judy. It didn't took long for the rabbit cot to recognize it as Ralph's family picture what Nick had showed her in Ralph's office in his theater. However, this prompted her to scowl Nick with a scolding look in her eyes when she realized that Nick had snatched it from Raph's table when they left from his theater after they had finished their investigation back in there.

"I don't know how did you get this, Slicky, but I'm definitely gonna have a talk with you about that "kleptomania" issues of yours, Slicky." Judy lectured her partner.

"Fair enough, fluff." Nick grinned, before his expression turned into serious. "But listen my point, Judy. Back in Ralph's theater when I was investigating Ralph's office, I noticed his family picture on his office's table, that showed that that sourpuss impala had two children, and on the basis of their appearance in the picture, here they are!" Nick explained pointing at the impalas in front of them.

Judy eyed the impalas in front of them and then two Ralph's children in the picture: Despite the fact that the impalas in front of her and in the picture had age difference of five years, they still had the same physical characteristics, though with a few minor differences. The female one, even in the cheetah-costume, had a thin waist and large hips, and she had dyed her fur to the shiny golden-brown. And just like Gazelle, she had a blond hair, which she had tied behind of her head into a ponytail. And the male impala here, his doctor jacket and the wolf-costume was torn enough to reveal a sharp-toothed piranha tattoo in his chest to "show some toughness", just like with the picture's boy impala. And in addition of that, he was wearing under the jacket and the costume a rap necklace: a gold dollar symbol on golden chain around his neck. And what comes to the small spiraling horns the picture's impala boy had, this teen impala had only small stubs in the place of the horns, hinting the fact that he had probably sawed them off so that the mask could fit perfectly to his head.

The realization started to dawn on Judy as well.

"Oh, sweet cheese and crackers!" Judy exclaimed as her eyes returned back to the teen impalas in front of them. "You two are Ralph Melampus' kids?!"

The impalas in front of her nodded their heads. "

Yes, we're twins, Alex and Selma Melampus." the female antelope called Selma confessed.

"Well, that then explains these masks." Nick remarked, lifting up the masks of cheetah and wolf he was still holding in his paw.

Chief Bogo then stood forward and glared down at the teen impalas darkly.

"So, you two hooligans are responsible for the recently happened scams and thefts?! May I ask why?" the buffalo questioned coldly.

Both impalas stared at the large and angry buffalo in front of them with the nervous looks on their faces, before both of them let out the sigh in defeat and relented, knowing that the game was over for them.

"Well, to our own defense, we're not doing this because of money, if that was your first guess." Selma explained.

"We're doing this just for fun." Alex added. "You see, we two are competing with each other."

This revelation confused Judy, Nick and Bogo once again.

"Competition? Is that what this is all about?" Judy asked with a strict and lecturing voice, to which the impalas nodded proudly.

"Yes. We two were competing that which one of us does better to trick the most famous, richest and notable mammals of Zootopia." Selma confessed with the wide and proud smirk in her lips.

"Without being caught, of course." Alex finished smugly.

Both of the impalas then, especially Selma, burst into laughter.

"HAH! Mr. Sullivan did not suspect anything when he hired me as a new secretary. I just needed to act the sweet and charming in order to wipe out all that old wolf's suspects out of his mind and my pretty gazelle-costume did the rest of the job." Selma confessed while giggled at that job.

"Well, that wasn't nothing yet." Alex boasted. "I got the lead with my otter cook and female pig cleaner."

This revelation confused the officers and their minds were filled with a one question: A female pig cleaner is one thing, but if Alex was that backstabber otter cook who caused Mr. Po'anda Chinakiro the food poisoning and stole his Lionscars, and that the otters are in reality about three times smaller than impalas, then how in the fur he was able to fit into the otter-costume without arousing suspicion? That was still the mystery.

"Well, I managed to catch you up with my hippo girl to trick from that Lisa Cougar her precious saxophone from under of her nose… and after that, I got the lead with my female rhino girlfriend for that lovesick tough guy, Rhinocerotidae." Selma boasted proudly as she giggled even more at her memories of her scams.

Judy frowned in anger after hearing that Selma confessed having cruelly tricked Mr. Rhinocerotidae in love relationship and stolen from Lisa Cougar her saxophone. Judy was even further disgusted at Selma laughing at the poor cougar's emotional pain and sorrow as if it was a funny game to steal something which is a very valuable object for her.

Taking a note of Judy's angry look in her face, Selma attempted nervously hold back her laughter.

"Yeah. Well, okay. I'll admit if those two jobs with Lisa Cougar and that Rhinocerotidae were a quite raw. But what you can do? In the war and competition, there is no room for remorse nor emotional feelings. Besides, our competition was more important." Selma boasted, making Judy growl angrily at this.

"Well, then came the moment when we both got stuck in the draw for a few days forward after I had tricked Gazelle to hire me as her new gardener, thus enabling me to steal all of her shiny dancing dresses and jewelry under her nose." Alex explained.

This revelation of the theft on Gazelle kind of prompted Bogo to glare down at Alex even more angry.

"Yeah, we did. I tried for the next three days to come up with a new scam to take the lead again." Selma explained, until she turned to Bogo with the taunting grin on her lips, ready to reveal her a little secret to the Chief of ZPD. "Until I finally got an perfect, crooked and backstabbing idea to dupe Chief Bogo himself as newszebra... Zelda the Zebra."

This revelation of course shocked Bogo.

"Oh, no! It was you all the time?!" the buffalo roared in anger.

"Yes, and I was so close to success in my plan… until my idiotic brother happened to appear to the scene in that wolf costume and mask... and especially in that ridiculous doctor's jacket while carrying and empty medical bag with him." Selma explained while turning her angry face at her brother as the twins slowly rose back to their feet.

"Well, because I saw you running away from the window, dear sister." Alex said with the smug grin.

Alex's claim merely angered Selma to the point that she kicked her brother hard and rather painfully to his ankle, making Alex to wince in pain.

"DID NOT, you hornless jerk! I just went to change the disguise and the mask!" Selma angrily denied.

Then Judy threw herself in between of the arguing and fighting siblings and pushed them away from each other. The rabbit officer's strength in keeping two vast larger animal away from each other, for the rabbit, surprised Nick, Bogo and the impalas totally.

"Does your father know what you're doing? And if he does, was that robbery in his theater part of your plan to not get caught?" Judy questioned.

Both impalas immediately shook their heads.

"Well, he doesn't know what we're doing. And if he does, it could mean once again the bath of stench." Alex said with the crooked look on his face.

"Ew, I hate those baths. Two weeks and the scent is still attached on my fur." Selma complained with the disgusted expression on her face too.

"A bath of stench, eh? Two weeks, eh?" Nick coolly muttered, recalling the moments when he had felt a strange yet disgusting stench back in ZPD Headquarters when the fake newszebra had paid the visit to chief Bogo.

Nick also recalled the victims' given information of the strange and disgusting scent in the crime scenes after the scams... and that started to remind the fox officer about the band of skunks outside of Ralph's theater, especially that what they did to him during of his and Judy's visit in there.

"Is this so-called "the bath of stench" some sort of bath of the skunk's stench in which your father forces you two to bath?" Nick questioned, suspecting initially some sort of abuse from Ralph towards his children, until the another question came into his mind. "Or is it because of three local skunks, who sometimes pays a visit to you to spray their stench on you two?"

"Well, if we two behave badly, like arguing or fighting with each other or break something, father makes us to clean up the theater's outside walls." Axel responded.

"And that's the perfect moment for those irritating punks to come to spray their disgusting stench on us to our annoyance! EWWW!" Selma almost yelled in disgust.

"What are you up to with that, Nick?" Judy asked, not getting what Nick meant with his questions for Alex and Selma.

"As I've said earlier, I did smell something strange and rather awful in the air at the headquarters when so-called false Zelda the newszebra paid the visit. Also, some of the victims of the latest scams have also said that they did catch an awful smell at their homes afterwards of the scams, and I did caught the same stench back in Ralph's theater and here. At first I suspected our con artists to be a pack of skunks in disguises... but now they turned out to be the pair of impala siblings who seriously reek like the punch of skunks." Nick theorized eagerly.

"You knew this and you didn't tell us?!" Bogo said with the scolding tone.

"Well, honestly, I first believed that someone let out the fart back in the headquarters when I caught the stench for the first time. It wasn't till later I realized that that what kind of animal the stench belonged to, but we were too busy in our newest case that I had not time to tell Judy about it. Not 'til we arrived here and captured our skunk-reeking friends."

Judy then shook her hands at Nick, gesturing him to stop. "I think me and Bogo get it, Nick. Besides, that doesn't matter anymore now when we have them."

Judy then turned back to the impalas.

"What about the robbery in your father's theater?" the rabbit officer questioned, before she started to explain the reason for her question. "There was a report of lost disguises from Ralph's theater, about two weeks before the scams. However, as stubborn as he was, Ralph didn't deny it but claimed that it wasn't a big deal, and that the thieves were just a desperate mammals had the cold and they just wanted some warm to dress for the cold nights. Any desperate mammal may turn to burglary to get what they need. However, contrary to the report, there was no trace of the burglary, yet my partner, as he already said, happened to catch a strange smell from the supposed "crime scene" as we were investigating there. And because the two of you reek of the skunks, according to my partner, you two must be aware of the whole thing."

Judy then paused to catch her breath after her long explanation.

"So, I'm gonna ask you... was that report of the apparent false burglary your plan to draw away from you two as much attention as possible, or does that mean that your father is involved in these scams and he's trying to cover your tracks?" the rabbit officer questioned.

Alex nodded to Judy's former guess "Well yes, we set the whole theater robbery in the first place. You see, we needed a cover crime to lead the ZPD officers to the wrong trails."

"Explain that." Judy demanded.

Alex prepared himself for the long explanation for a moment, before the impala boy opened his mouth to speak.

"Two weeks ago before our competition, me and Selma snatched the several disguises and mask from father's theater and feigned with father's phone number the crime report so that the authorities would view it as a robbery and focus on it. We led our father to believe that the burglars were after nothing else but the some worn coats to dress warmly for the cold nights, and along with the fact that there was no any property damage during the supposed burglary, which we took care of, father considered it to be no big deal. We also benefited from the knowledge that our father has not been on good spirits with the ZPD, which is why father does not allow the cops to investigate the supposed "crime scene". It was supposed to protect the origin of our disguises, if any eyewitness had happened to identify the disguise under the false identity." Alex explained.

"Yeah. That was the one thing we feared to happen during of our competition. However, after our test run, we assumed that no one in society would recognize the disguises under the fake identity... not even the cops, if we keep switching the disguises and masks after each scam we perform." Selma added.

"Test run?" Judy and Nick said both in unison, confused of this revelation.

"We trained ourselves as a con artists for two weeks and tested different costumes and masks. And a month before our competition, we decided to go through the week lasting test run by infiltrating with the audience at each performance, disguised as teen mammals with the various masks and fake identities. We pretended to be a friendly and open to some mammals, tricked them to let their guard down, before we secretly stole their wallets from their pockets during the night's performance and none of them realized their wallets missing, not till outside of the theater, back in their homes or much later. And on the basis of our achievements, as we managed to gain $4,500 within week, if I remember correctly, and avoid being caught in the act, we declared our test run successful." Selma said boastfully.

Judy, Nick's and Bogo's eyes widened a bit when something dawned on them.

"A week-lasting crime wave in form of the pocket theft in Ralph's theater about a month ago." Nick eventually said in realization.

"Hmmm... I guess that we just hit the jackpot by capturing the conspirators of both the pocket theft and these recent scams." Judy added with the victorious smirk.

Bogo nodded with the proud smile, until it faded away as the chief of ZPD resumed his serious look.

"I have heard enough. Officers Hopps and Wilde, Call the backup to take these two away."

Both Judy and Nick turned to Bogo, both a bit surprised of the fact that they had totally forgotten the backup while trying to restrain these two lawbreakers.

"Actually, sir, we already did when we were on our way here." Nick replied, 'till the fox officer suddenly noticed that the long ago called backup was still in absence, much to his confusion.

"You did?" Bogo questioned, until the buffalo noticed their long-lasting absence as well. "But then they should've been here a long time ago."

"Agree." Judy nodded. "What's taking them so long?"

It was the moment when Selma opened her mouth to speak again.

"Let us say, before I arrived to the scene as police officer, I used ZPD's walkie talkie to set up the false alarm in order to turn the backup to the another direction to buy myself more time, though not before ensuring that _Cat in the Fat_ that I got the situation under control." Selma revealed, while giggling at that.

Judy immediately shot daggers into Selma in anger for that brat insulting Clawhauser by calling him _Cat in the Fat_. The rabbit officer's fiercely burning glare immediately shut the cheeky impala's boastful mouth.

"Alex and Selma Melampus, you two are under arrest for pocket theft, conspiracy and countless thefts." Judy declared. "You two have the right to remain silent." she added.

"Yeah, anything you say can and will be used as evidence against you in a court of law… despite the fact, you've already told us everything we wanted to hear." Nick said with the cocky smirk as he put his sun glasses on his nose and boastfully showed the impalas his officer badge.

However, Nick earned with his cocky smirk and boastful attitude a punch to his right arm from Judy.

"Knock it off, Slick."

 **To be continued...**


End file.
